Punctuation perils of motorway driving

A good hour into a motorway journey. There's something suitably chilled on the CD player. It's early on a sun-warmed, yawn-sleepy Autumnal morning. The M1 is looking as good as the M1 can ever look: the grain store we pass is blushing in the dawning light, looking absurdly like an Art Deco palace somewhere in a riviera. We're zooming happily past lorries, and I'm smiling as I remember my (disturbingly precocious) 3-year-old niece's habit of pointing at them, telling me that they're called 'camions' in French, and then asking me what they are in Welsh. (I resist the urge to say 'llorry').

My partner is driving. Which is a good thing, as I suddenly wake from my drowsy state to become a spitting, snarling, incoherently gibbering cat-beast. He swerves, slightly, and wants to know what's wrong. I point a trembling, raging, finger at a Sainsbury's van that we're passing. 'THAT!!' I finally manage to spit out, somehow managing to force down the backwash of bile that should accompany the word.

The Sainsbury's van says 'Why not order online, we can deliver next day'.

Which should explain things somewhat.

However, earlier that day, we'd seen a 'Natures best' slogan on another van – one for a local veg box scheme – and that only warranted a slight, disdainful harrumph. So why my headaching, hate-filled, expostulating, expectorating rage at this? I suspect I was feeling rather betrayed by Sainsbury's, a brand that I feel quite warmly towards, even if it is one of the evil supermarket companies. I think I was also horrified that the slogan in question must have passed so many people on its journey from Illustrator file to van livery (which probably didn't happen for the veg box van). And not one of them regarded it quizzically for a second, re-read it, and asked, 'Should that not be...?' Perhaps the violence of my reaction was in fact the accumulated horror I felt on behalf of (or about) all those signers-off, all those quality checkers, all those brand and voice and design guardians, all those people who SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

My poor partner puts up with a lot. Many long journeys are punctuated by irritated harrumphs, guffaws and other crossness. It's difficult for him, because as a designer he doesn't quite get why I greet these grammatical insults with an agonised expression and a lip-quivering 'but it's just wrong'. There isn't a grammar of design (discuss – we have, many times, at length). He will make a judgement about whether something is well-designed or not. But he's unlikely to bust seams when something is poorly designed: just shake his head, witheringly.

It's not like I'm a grammatical luddite. I am happy – celebratory, in fact – about the idea of language as an evolving being. When my linguistics tutor likened people who sigh about the decline and fall of the language to people who can't bear to see a damp teaspoon in the sugar, I nodded brightly. In spoken language, in drama, in film, in art, in lyrics, in literature, in poetry – I love a bit of wordplay, me. Heck knows I muck about with grammar enough. I can be frivolous with a full stop when I fancy. I just can't deal when it's so obviously a mistake, so brazenly a balls-up, so glaringly a huge, careless whoopsie. When it's on the side of a van.

The van in question, by the way, was being towed by a breakdown truck. I am finding some comfort from believing that the engine expired in protest.