Language Follies 5

I was going to open this post with another snarky remark about how nice it is to have a product that is unashamedly claiming to be what it is. In this case, avocado. 

However, I have had second thoughts. I definitely prefer to have avocados made into avocados than to have grass and weeds made into some other green stuff. So let’s hear it for the real thing. (And by the way, has anybody here seen an imitation crab in nature?)

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While we’re lingering in the grocery aisles, consider the branding efforts that some emporia are exerting. Shop-Rite has re-labeled many of their products “Bowl & Basket.” Shop-Rite claims that those products come “From our Bowl to your Basket.” Here is part of an explanation given by the branding company that thought the thing up:

The ampersand at the center of Bowl & Basket is only a starting point for moments of joy. This point of connection extends the brand purpose of togetherness beyond the name to make many quality combinations such as: Milk & Cereal, Saturday & Pajamas, Friends & Family, Bowl & Basket.*

“Saturdays & Pajamas”? It is to laugh.

I wonder what bowl that tilapia came out of.

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Still on the ampersand track, what would you say is the meaning behind “Good & Gather”? 

If I didn’t already know the answer, I would unhesitatingly assume that I was witnessing a meeting of the Society of Friends, AKA, the Quakers. Here’s a clue:

That’s right; it’s a label for products sold at Target. Nothing holy about it.

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How many words are there in the English language? There is no definitive answer to that question as the language keeps growing. One starting point might be Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, which together with its 1993 Addenda Section, includes some 470,000 entries.** 

Despite being in my ninth decade, I am still taken aback when I suddenly come upon a word that seems to have sprung up like Topsy. Past words that seemed to ambush me from out of nowhere included cholesterol, tofu, and tapas. Most recently, I can’t seem to escape the word slider used as a description for a hamburger seriously deficient in ingredients. No-one online has a clue as to the origin of its present ubiquitousness. 

Having been in the education racket for so much of my life, I thought I knew just about most of the terminology of the profession. All of a sudden, though, I have been inundated with references to rising seniors. Where in hell did that term come from? And if some seniors are “rising” does that mean others are declining? 

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I was going to post a screed about so-called Street Fashion (or Streetwear), but I just learned that its foremost components are “jeans, T-shirts, baseball caps, and sneakers.”***

That’s me: Mr. Street Fashion.

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*  https://thedieline.com/blog/2020/7/13/bowl--basket

**  https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-are-in-the-english-language

***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetwear#:~:text=Streetwear%20is%20a%20style%20of,skateboarding%20and%20Japanese%20street%20fashion.