The RV, the Cookies and the Words

    Those who have known me for any length of time know that I’m something of a stickler for the English language.  I’m not as irritating about it as some, but certainly more so than others.  I understand there are various ways of speaking and writing to communicate with different audiences.  I admit ignoring many of the squiggly green lines Microsoft Word provides for my grammatical enlightenment because I don’t want my blogs to appear stiff or uppity.  But, there are certain pet peeves that I have great difficulty ignoring when in a conversation with someone or observing signs around town.  I will not use this forum, at least at this time, to rant about the increasing misuse of “less” when “fewer” is meant.  I will not turn this particular post into a tirade on the utter confusion of apostrophe placement or its complete absence.  Perhaps some other time. I would like to address a few other phrases I have observed recently because words matter.

    Yesterday we received a tin of cookies in the mail.  This cute little gift was a nice gesture from the RV store where we spent a considerable amount of our hard-earned cash, stimulating the economy and putting a few bread crumbs on the table of the sales person, the financial clerk, the service manager, the mechanic and the owners.  I was thinking a nice dinner at Cattlemen’s or Black Angus would have been an appropriate gesture of gratefulness, so the cookies were a little bit of a disappointment.  That is, until I read the literature that came with the tin.  That little piece of paper shed a whole new light on that gift.  You see, I hadn’t realized that those cookies were “handmade.”  Think of it.  There were no machines involved in mixing the ingredients together or putting all those bits of batter on the cookie sheets to form the two dozen perfectly identical round shapes!  Somebody used their hands to do the mixing, and then those or another set of hands dropped the mixed dough onto cookie sheets and put them in an oven.  I began to reevaluate the value of this gift.

    Then I noticed that not only were they handmade, they were “fresh” as well!  My first thought had been that these cookies were days old, not “fresh,” meaning right out of the oven.  This revelation made the sincerity of the RV folks in expressing their thankfulness for our business much more meaningful.

    Sarcasm is not easily communicated in writing.  Yet, I suspect each of my readers detected a great deal of it in this post already.  You are very astute!  “Handmade” means “made by hands,” not machines.  I am a little skeptical about this claim.  “Fresh” gets a little more latitude.  It can mean “not stale,” “not preserved,” or “recently produced.”  The cookie makers claim these cookies were shipped the same day they were made, so they do fit at least one of those definitions.  But, they were shipped from Valdosta, Georgia three days before they arrived at our house.  I have a difficult time thinking of a three-day-old cookie as “fresh.”

    Furthermore, according to the box in which the tin arrived and the thank-you note inside, these freshly baked cookies were “Especially Made Just For You!”  If I attribute the normal definitions for these words to this phrase, I must assume somebody at this little bakery had my name in front of them while pouring the flour and seasonings into a bowl for my two dozen cookies.  What a nice thought.  But I am still skeptical.

    Finally, I would like to share with you the “Personal Note of Thanks” from our starving sales person (she told us we were driving such a hard bargain we were taking food off her table).  It is a printed note with her signature on a pre-printed line.  It references the “freshly baked” cookies, how they were “made especially for you” and is lacking a hyphen and a period.  One thing it says is certainly true, “We want to show you a small token of appreciation…”  This they accomplished.

    100 Push-Ups Update: I had to pause at 33.  My bulging muscles are doing fine, but my 60-year-old tendons seem to be rebelling.  All is not lost.  I will continue, but at a slower pace.