At Westchester County Airport (HPN), there are (among others) the following two ads:
Tranquility Spa
Westchester’s premiere day spa.
Dominican Sisters Family Health Service
New York’s premier visiting nurse service.
Never mind, for the moment, the pretentious use of premier
— we’re talking about (mostly) affluent Westchester County, NY, after all. But note that the Dominican Sisters got it right, and the day-spa folks blew it:
Premier
refers to the best of something, the leading example.
Premiere
refers to the first, not the best. And even if premiere
were what they meant, its use in this context would be odd. One might refer to a premiere offer
for their opening day, but this just doesn’t work.
Someone obviously did not use the premier advertising agency.
1 comment:
Maybe Tranquility Spa was trying to create that "snob effect" I see so much around me in names by sticking an "e" at the end of a word. You know, like "shoppe" instead of shop or "parke" instead of park.
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