When Public Relations Fails To Relate To The Public

Journalists often love to covertly insert nuggets of polysyllabic exercise into their pieces. But what about press relations, who also must write for a mass audience?

The William F. Buckley Jr. prize for Best Polysyllabic Moment to a Supporting Employee goes to the newsletter for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which today, with nose ever so slightly turned upward, managed to sneak in a word that even its highfalutin readership probably has to look up in the dictionary:

The Museum not only has pulchritudinous gallery interiors, but also features Central Park as its backdrop--offering stunning light and spectacular views in the spaces listed below.

In case you were wondering, pulchritudinous means nothing like it sounds: Princeton's WordNet defines it as "used of persons only; having great physical beauty; "pulchritudinous movie stars." And this beauty was slipped in between links to Central Park-themed displays and a Poussin exhibition.

Cheers to the nameless author whose boredom at work manifested itself into this buried gem at the end of the newsletter.