PetSmart

Kyle Schultz, a 2008 graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in Sports Communication who is currently the assistant manager of a strip-mall hobby shop in Laurel and lives in his parents’ basement in Savage, MD, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

There is this pet store chain called “PetSmart.” How is that word supposed to be read? Does it mean “pet smart,” like, if your domestic animal is intelligent you should come to that store? Hey, what the hell does the intelligence of the ANIMAL have to do with it? Or maybe it means “pets mart,” like, a mart for pets. And what’s “PretzeLand”? Also, what’s a “mart?”

- Signed, Kyle Schultz

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Dear Kyle,

I called the PetSmart company, and it turns out they payed a gajillion dollars to a big ad agency for a name that was “both ambigous and clever,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. They wouldn’t give a straight answer to your question. In fact, the woman on the phone seemed to be anoyed and was talking down to me. Not that I care, because I never go there anymore anyway since they keep being out of the exact kind of cat litter that I have a coupon for.

I don’t know what a “mart” is, so it couldn’t be that.

- The Grammer Genious