Insult by Punctuation

Punctuation can entirely change the meaning of a sentence.   We've all seen their (possessive) when the writer meant they are.
 
There is an advertising campaign that's plastered the Seattle area for the last couple of  years, mostly on bus signs, that i find annoying because of bad punctuation.   Actually it's not annoying so much as incomprehensible.  I don't know who the ad it is for, i think it's an insurance company.  It says

                We're a lot like you.
                A Little Different.

The punctuation is completely wrong. They put a period between the two phrases.  Since it's obviously wrong you have to try to figure out what the correct punctuation should be and substitute that, only then can you understand it.  They leave that up to the reader.  Most people do that unconsciously but because i have Aspergers and i'm a bit obsessive, i'm very conscious of it every time i see it.

Honestly, the problem isn't that it's wrong, that's no big deal; the problem is that there are two different possible ways to punctuate it correctly and so there are two very different ways to understand it.  There is no way to know which is the intended one, and they have very significantly different meanings.

One meaning is very insulting, the other invokes a bit of camaraderie.  The first dozen times or so that i saw the advertisement i read it the insulting way.  Even now when i read it, the insulting way seems the more likely based on how it's written.

That period is wrong.

What should it be? It cannot be a period because the second phrase is not a complete sentence; it can't be a semi-colon for the same reason. So the only possibilities are: a comma, or a colon. 

The more uncommon, academic way of reading it would be with a colon.  I suspect this is the one they intended, even though it's a more rare use, and most people would be less likely to default to that.

     We are a lot like you: a little different.

Which means --  We are all in the same boat, and together we're special, not quite like those other people.


The more common, more readily understandable way to read it would be with the comma.   It would say:

       We are a lot like you, a little different.

Which means -- "Well, we may be a bit odd, but not as weird as you are! We're not that strange!!"

Every time i see it i think they are telling me (and everyone around me) that we're too weird for them.