Price supports rarely benefit small farmers.
The Good Word
Words matter. In any situation, you can use a ‘meh’ word, and it will communicate just that: meh. You can use a standard, ordinary word, and it will communicate that: ordinary. But if you use the right word, the perfect word, the word or combination of words calculated to make your exact point, you will communicate exactly what you wanted to say.
Witness Winston Churchill describing FDR:’Meeting (him) was like opening your first bottle of Champagne; knowing him was like drinking it’. Given that Churchill was so fond of Champagne that Pol Roger named its top cuvee after him, that’s a powerful endorsement. He didn’t just state that Roosevelt was a friend, a great man, or that he respected and admired him; he compared meeting him to one of his chief pleasures in life.
At Pour Richard’s, we’re surrounded by words. We hand write all our shelf tags because we want you to know what we particularly liked about a beverage, what it is, and why you might like to try it. And some wine names are pure poetry-Rain on Leaves or A Slow Walk with the Wind come to mind. But beer names really knock it out of the park. A recent beer delivery featured Foreign Objects Pig Factory and Wet Gravity, Gun Hill Live From Jacobi, Prospect Ciderworks Missing Link, and SoMe Big Whoop. I go back and forth between searching for some cryptic meaning in the names and thinking the brewers are just messing with us. Solemn Oath Wonderful and Strange-what does that mean? It’s a puzzle.
Speaking of puzzles, one of my favorite ways to spend a lazy Sunday is to curl up with the New York Times, and more specifically, with the Spelling Bee Puzzle from the Times Magazine. Seven letters are placed in a beehive formation; the reader’s challenge is to combine them into as many words of five or more letters as possible, with each word containing the center letter at least once. In the example above, niece and repine would qualify. Piece does not, because it fails to use the center letter. It’s maddeningly addictive, and I refuse to quit until I’ve solved it…even if it takes me til Monday!
Once you’ve finished watching the Super Bowl, give it a try yourself. As a little incentive, bring us one of the answer words from this week’s Spelling Bee puzzle, and we’ll give you 10% off one item of your choice*. Why? Because I want to find my fellow word geeks. I can’t be the only person addicted to this puzzle-can I?
* Offer good through Saturday, February 10. Not applicable to previous sales or email specials.