I remember several years ago r/Casual Conversation was brimming with interesting and candid discussion. As it gained more and more traction I saw it go through the same evolution that killed r/IAmA and r/askreddit. More popularity means more traffic, more traffic means more posts, more posts means stricter moderating, stricter moderating means less “casual” posts. Before long it was just another upvote machine, and that’s when I dipped out.
So having said that, how is your morning going? Did you do anything cool this weekend?
I haven’t had Hi-C in a long time. Does it actually contain any fruit juice?
It does, and that’s why I had a huge debate. It’s not 100% juice, but it is juice by any average person’s understanding of the word juice (because it contains juice). I literally had to pull up the FDA definition
I think that begs the question though - how much juice does a beverage need to contain for the beverage to be considered juice? My initial instincts would say >50%. Like how much juice does Capri Sun contain? I haven’t had that in a long time either, but honestly I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that it’s just sugar water and not juice at all. Spindrift has real fruit juice in it, but I wouldn’t call that juice. A margarita has juice in it. I think you have to draw the line somewhere. Do you recall the percentange in Hi-C?
Essentially, the official definition and the colloquial definition agree that it all comes down to how you went to sell it and if it contains “any concentration” of juice. And think about it, if I said “convey that you want me to pass you a cup of HiC without using the word ‘HiC’ while still being specific about what is you want” you normally wouldn’t hesitate to say “pass me the juice”, regardless of concentration of actual juice
Hmm I do agree with you that language is just a means to an end, and as long as the words you choose effectively communicate what it is you are trying to express, then sure, you used the right words. But I think it’s possible to still be technically incorrect despite everyone knowing what you mean. Like how everyone calls pencil graphite ‘lead’. It’s not lead, and you’re technically wrong for calling it that, but everone knows what you mean.
I think that, especially when it comes to highly processed foods, it is important to have distinctions. The word ‘cheese’ for instance implies a specific process using milk as the primary ingredient. There are products that are not allowed to be called ‘cheese’, but rather ‘cheese flavored product’. ‘Juice’ to me implies that it came from a fruit, and I am surprised the FDA does not have a similar requirement as they do with other products such as cheese.
All that said, yeah I would probably call Hi-C ‘juice’ if I weren’t stopping to think about it.