Kristyn Schiavone is a new-ish fashion columnist in our paper and I’m on the fence about whether I like her or not. Cons: she’s not local (she seems to be out of Chicago), her writing style is a bit too “sorority girl” for me, and she’s quite peppy. Granted, those last two might be a given with fashion columnists. Pros: Um, I keep reading her?
But today a sentence in the article took my breath away. Check out #4.
Only twenty dollars? To me, a fully-employed professional, there is no “only” about a twenty dollar bill. There’s not really an “only” about a five-dollar bill in my world. So to read that a manicure is “only” twenty dollars is pretty jarring. I think columnists/commentators make this mistake a lot. They think that all their readers are in the same demographic as they are. It’s not a good thing.
Only twenty dollars? To me, a fully-employed professional, there is no “only” about a twenty dollar bill. There’s not really an “only” about a five-dollar bill in my world. So to read that a manicure is “only” twenty dollars is pretty jarring. I think columnists/commentators make this mistake a lot. They think that all their readers are in the same demographic as they are. It’s not a good thing.
Man, I read that and noticed that too!
As someone who gets her nails done and likes bold colors, I can say that it does connect to me. And yet, I am not really a reader.
But I do agree with you that such presumptions are annoying in any author.
For most of my customers, $20 would be a "cheap" manicure. Even when I got manicures (due to the nature of my current job, it hardly seems to be a good idea any longer), I could only justify the expense maybe a few times a year. I honestly can't imagine having the disposable income to do it all the time.