Milk and Dairy
There's a big sign on the outside of a Tesco Express near where I live and it says
MILK AND DAIRY
So I marched in and asked for the manager and then said "Dairy WHAT?"
- Oh, all right, I didn't, because I knew I would be met with a blank stare swiftly followed by a lot of sirens and clanging doors.
But I wish I had. Because Dairy in that context is not a noun. It's not a thing. It is an adjective, a describing word. You can have A Dairy which is a place where things are done to milk. And the things that have things done to them are called DAIRY PRODUCE. What kind of produce? Yes, that's right, DAIRY produce. ADJECTIVE MODIFYING THE WORD PRODUCE.
(We had the Daily Telegraph delivered by mistake today. Perhaps that's what's done this to me.)
But about once a week, someone says to me in the hushed tones of the Very Very Worthy, "I'm giving up dairy."
Well, you can feign interest only so far, but I generally tread the polite road of "Oh, really, why?" and then they tell you that most of the world doesn't eat dairy or drink dairy and cow's milk is not good for people and dairy is full of unnecessary fat and - - -
Look, from now on I'm not going to go there. Tell me you're giving up dairy and I'm going to give you a Hard Stare and then say "Dairy WHAT? And while you're thinking about it, could you pass the Stilton, please?"
MILK AND DAIRY
So I marched in and asked for the manager and then said "Dairy WHAT?"
- Oh, all right, I didn't, because I knew I would be met with a blank stare swiftly followed by a lot of sirens and clanging doors.
But I wish I had. Because Dairy in that context is not a noun. It's not a thing. It is an adjective, a describing word. You can have A Dairy which is a place where things are done to milk. And the things that have things done to them are called DAIRY PRODUCE. What kind of produce? Yes, that's right, DAIRY produce. ADJECTIVE MODIFYING THE WORD PRODUCE.
(We had the Daily Telegraph delivered by mistake today. Perhaps that's what's done this to me.)
But about once a week, someone says to me in the hushed tones of the Very Very Worthy, "I'm giving up dairy."
Well, you can feign interest only so far, but I generally tread the polite road of "Oh, really, why?" and then they tell you that most of the world doesn't eat dairy or drink dairy and cow's milk is not good for people and dairy is full of unnecessary fat and - - -
Look, from now on I'm not going to go there. Tell me you're giving up dairy and I'm going to give you a Hard Stare and then say "Dairy WHAT? And while you're thinking about it, could you pass the Stilton, please?"
posted by Daphne at 8:05 pm
3 Comments:
Not one in favour of the natural evolution of language, then?
The language doesn't seem to be evolving; it is crawling back into the sea and will soon be nothing but a small blob of goo floating about on the waves.
Bush and Blair are a symptom of this linguistic regression; I could forgive them their total indifference to public opinion, and appalling taste in ties, if their conversation had been more like that of politicians of centuries past and less like that of reality TV victims.
Broadsheet newspapers are crammed with bloody misplaced apostrophes, and the word "bling" is in the Oxford English Dictionary. Bling, n. Hideous jewellery, definition only applicable if jewellery more than 10x heavier than brain of wearer.
In fact, getting me started on "the natural evolution of the language" is like telling the aforementioned President that the contents of my sanitary towel is not a human being.
(I'll shut up now).
Emily, 100 years ago you sadly wouldn't have been able to talk about a 'blob of goo'. 400 years ago you wouldn't have even been able to talk about 'evolution'. But that was back in the days when you could happily make up your own words and nobody wrote to the Telegraph to complain. By the time you’re old Harrods and has a bling department you’ll probably have got used to it.
Daphne, according to my Collins: dairy (noun) 1) a building or room for the storage blah blah of milk products, 2) milk and milk products collectively. (And as everyone knows dictionaries are written by God and therefore contain neither personal opinion nor mistakes.)
It’s not the grammar that bothers me about ‘milk and dairy’, it’s the tautology. It’s like ‘beef and meat’ or ‘spaghetti and pasta’. Or ‘rings and bling’.
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