We received nearly 200 entries (198 for the actuaries among you) correctly identifying the Fake Ad for Winesnob on page 52 of the March issue.
“I forgot to send in my response by noon today,” Moira Tannenbaum emailed on deadline day, “but I have a story to share.
“My late mother-in-law, Ruth Tannenbaum, was a dedicated Fake Adder. My husband and I moved to town in 1993, and shortly after that (as far as I remember: or maybe when the Observer started the Fake Ads?) she and I began a monthly ‘Did you find the Fake Ad?’ discussion.
“Ruth died in 2012, on March 7, at age 85. Many people in town knew her because she had worked at U-M’s former ‘Chemistry Store’ for upward of 16 years. She was an amazing woman who as a New York City teen had done a high school project on the United Nations that ended with her and a few other teenage girls educating the public on this new concept …
“This month, I could not find the Fake Ad. I looked and looked. Finally, I picked up the paper one last time and bingo, found it. So creative to have D’Souza written out as d’apostrophes ou zabre … even though this ends up with two apostrophes …
“I relished the Spanish (even with its odd capitalization and minus its accent in lechon) and glorious real and partially real French (where were all the missing diacritic marks, BTW?). Ruth did not fuss about diacritic marks, by the way.”
Thanks, Moira.
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Dale Knab’s entry was drawn as our winner. He’s taking his gift certificate to Downtown Home & Garden.
