This blog is for everyone who uses words.

The ordinary-sized words are for everyone, but the big ones are especially for children.



Thursday 26 September 2013

Ambient juice: a rant.

Save 50 pence on Cherrygood Ambient Juice, said the supermarket coupon I was given the other day.

Ambient juice.

Ambient juice?

...but what on earth...

...hang on, let's calm down and think about it properly.

Ambient means to do with the surroundings. So ambient noise is the average amount of noise in a place, rather than the level directly in front of the loudspeakers; and ambient temperature is the temperature of a room in general rather than that of the bowl of ice cream on the table.

So...ambient juice...

...that would be juice that you spray into the atmosphere, then, so you can put out your tongue and lick a few drops out of the air whenever you like.

...um...

...or...

...or, well, this is just a guess, but could it possibly be that calling the stuff ambient is a totally meaningless and infuriating marketing ploy by illiterates for illiterates?

I'll leave it to you to determine.

Word To Use Today: ambient. This word comes from the Latin ambiēns, which means going around.

That's like my head, then.

Ambient juice indeed...

 



2 comments:

  1. Reminder to self: do not drink - anything - while reading this blog.
    Spraying tends to happen!

    I really must check for that ambient juice next time I'm shopping. I do hope there's some ambient milk near by! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When I searched for ambient juice online I found a poor translator wondering what on earth he should do.

      It was all Greek to him - which is odd, because it was into Greek that he couldn't translate it.

      Delete

All comments are very welcome, but please make them suitable for The Word Den's family audience.