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Ford's F-Series is now the official truck of the NFL. This is a sentence that raises a few questions (like why does the NFL have an official truck?) but that is, at heart, simple. There's a football league. Some of its fans like trucks. Money has changed hands for the league to say that this sort of truck is the best, in the hope that fans will approve and maybe buy said truck. Fine.

Unfortunately, when Ford decided to deliver this news to the world, instead of spelling it out in clear English they went for Seussian poetry. Here's the opening bullet point from the company's press release:

Built Ford Tough Ford trucks now Official Truck of the National Football League, celebrating America’s toughest trucks and football’s toughest players

Right. Just really going for it, aren't they?

Hacking through the first part of this sentence is a grammatical and phonetic trial. Say it with me: Built Ford Tough Ford trucks. Built Ford Tough Ford trucks. Built Ford Tough... Ford ... trucks? It's notable because this is not the creation of some zealous linguist trying to demonstrate the infinite flexibility of the English language (see technically-correct-but-labyrinthian sentences like "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"). Instead, this tongue twister is the product of single-minded marketing. Ford is so dedicated to the phrase "Built Ford Tough" — which it has already plastered onto distressed hats, hunting knives, and dog collars — that it refuses to let petty worries like "reading comprehension" interfere with its placement within a sentence. Ford Tough.

Trucks are tough and football players are tough; you are tough and i am tough

Once we've navigated the opening noun-salvo, we move into a world where trucks and football players are almost interchangeable. Both, says Ford, possess the quality of "toughness" and that's all there is to it. Show a Ford advertising exec a picture of a linebacker and he will say "What sort of towing capacity does that fella have?" Show him a picture of a Ford F-650 Super Duty truck and he'll reply "That guy really looks like he can tackle."

The quality of toughness is so deeply embedded into Ford's worldview that the company can't actually utter a sentence that doesn't include the concept. "Tough" and its cognates show up 24 times in a press release that's 651 words long — that's a 1.15 toughs per sentence. Tough going, some might say.

Squeezed into the margins of this document is the news that Ford is also partnering with Uber to let fans order "Built Ford Tough Tailgate Trucks" to tailgate parties, which will deliver "tough tailgate food, game tickets, and merchandise." The press release doesn't, though, make it clear where the trucks will be available, or if you need to fulfill any particular criteria to order the (presumably free?) food. If you want more information than that, Ford has just one word for you: tough.