My apologies to the metal heads in the group, who well know what a left handed thread is, but that only applies to bolts….. Some years ago, I picked up a hardware retailers mag that had two significant errors in their ads. The first one I noticed was an announcement for a new CEO for a CDN retailer who was proudly holding a wooden plane which had the wooden wedge beneath the blade. At face he was celebrating a long history of hardware flogging, but clearly he didn’t know squat about the items chosen to relay that fact. The second item was a two page spread from a screw manufacturer. A double page spread of a screw, quite unremarkable except that on closer examination, the threads were left handed. Obviously a print/copy shop error, but what it said to me was the folks who were putting this mag together did no know even basic knowledge as to which way was up in at least two fundamentals of the construction business…..and niether did their advertisers or their agencies. It bespoke a whole lot about the process.. So, the left handed screw, is to my mind, an exquisitely simple and descriptive all-encompassing title for any jab at any WWing mag/rag/etc whom is off-base for whatever reason. Could we all agree that this is a suitable descriptor, or are there other suggestions. Eric in Calgary
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Maybe they supply these people: The Institute Screw
But at least they realize what it is "...3 foot, left handed, aluminum wood screw....."
Jim
When I was in high school I worked briefly for the school newspaper. The newspaper adviser was really hot on "layout" and had apparently read somewhere that faces in a picture should face the center of the page, etc. So she would often insist on "flipping" a negative to achieve this effect. Unfortunately, she rarely looked at the picture close enough to be sure that there was no visible text that would reveal the manipulation.
Then there's the "quilted Charmin" episode: A Charmin ad where tiny animated women were depicted "quilting" a sheet of "bathroom tissue". Only they weren't quilting, they were knitting. (To Charmin's -- or perhaps the ad agency's -- credit, they did respin the ad and turn the ladies into hand quilters, but it was a little awkward looking.)
There was a magazine ad last summer promoting Idaho potatoes that showed a group of happy "peasants" standing in field of nice high, green potato vines, picking potatoes into big baskets.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm
Do either of these really impact your life that much? The CEO went to a photographer who handed the guy a prop and said hold this. The CEO may be the most brilliant man in the world and the absolute best man to run the company for both the shareholders and the customers and he can be so WITHOUT knowing which end of hammer you use to drive a screw with. Similarly, he didn't pay the photog to know anything about planes. He paid the photog to know about lighting, angle, depth of field and capturing the image they want to project. The artistic person who reversed the picture of the screw may not know a monkey from a wrench but do you know adobe, photoshop and any of the tools of their trade?
Those of you that think you are perfect really annoy those of us who are. :)
I think a left handed screw is a 100%, totally legitimate hardware item. One could interpret it as meaning we have it all, even left-hand threads.
The wedge BENEATH the blade, however, THAT is inexcuseable and is an example of the disease currently infecting American management.
A short google and I found many manufactors of left
handed screws, not bolts!