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?
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.