cb2 catalog

For a real hoot, please check out the most recent CB2 catalog [please note the Internet version seems to be a bit cleaned up; the paper version will fill you with riotous laughter and happy glee beams] where you will find some of the most bizarre and incomprehensible catalog copy. Reproduced below, you will find a letter that I sent to the company via email:

Yes, I was looking through the most recent CB2 catalog and was astounded by the incomprehensible copy written for many of the items. My favorite happens to be the description for the channel storage (p. 47), “Dark wood grain laminate shelving flaunts a 1″ slit down the back to simultaneously reveal a hint of wall, conceal a mess of media cords. Bookcase has 5 fixed shelves. Media cart sides two doors with clean 1″ top reveals that open to one adjustable shelf each.” I was distracted by someone writing “a mess of cords,” which is a weirdly idiomatic expression. But I didn’t even know which product this referred to. Then the third sentence is simply confusing. There is strange and bizarre verbiage like this every where in the catalog: “angled wider seat” (not Wide angled seat) (15) and “slat mat stained matte black” (43). What gives with the strange copy? Was this intentional? This really makes me not want to buy these products because I don’t understand what they really are.

This kind of writing reminds me of a beloved Kikkoman soy sauce advert. I can only assume that someone wrote out the copy in a foreign language then had it translated by a non-english speaker. Our current hypothesis is Italian. What do you think?