Hooters and adverbs: a perplexing combination

by Eli Altman

Well, it’s Friday, so I figured I’d lighten things up a bit and talk about Hooters. You know, the restaurant where guys eat on vacation after attempting to sell their wives with a “…what? They have great chicken wings.” As far as I can tell, these are the guys who subscribe to Playboy for the articles.

Anyway, I saw someone wearing a Hooters shirt earlier today and I noticed the tagline on the back: “delightfully tacky yet unrefined.” This statement confuses me. While I agree that Hooters is both tacky and unrefined, the ‘yet’ throws me off. It implies that tacky and unrefined are somehow at odds with one another. If the tagline was “delightfully tacky and unrefined,” it would totally make sense, but it seems like they’re attempting to create contrast where there is none.

The two words even share some synonyms like crude, sleazy and unbecoming. That’s probably why it’s pretty easy to think of things that are both tacky and unrefined: spinning rims, John Daly’s pants at the British Open, Bass Pro Shops, Kenny Powers… the list goes on. The point is, tacky and unrefined go together like Jack and Coke.

Maybe you could use a ‘yet’ if your restaurant chain was delightfully tacky yet stylish, or maybe Victorian yet unrefined, but the way Hooters uses it is more confusing than anything else. Well actually, now that I think of it, misusing adverbs is tacky yet unrefined, so I guess it sort of makes sense in a grammatically self-reflective way.

Do me a favor: next time you’re in a Hooters enjoying some chicken wings, ask your waitress about it and see what she says.