Wednesday, July 12, 2006

And the foreign desk strikes again

Maybe it's just too long since we moved away from NASCAR country (though if you've done the same of late, you've noticed NASCAR country has a habit of catching up with you). Or maybe I just expect the worst when the crack NYT foreign desk dons the pith helmet and ventures down toward the homeland. But did this cross-cultural gem from the Times catch anybody else's eye?

Beers of The Times
It’s Hot. Drink Your Wheat.
WHEAT beer. It sounds healthy and almost bready, like something you might find in a New Age fantasy.

Imagine the wheat beer arriving as you complete your mud bath and aromatherapy, hypnotic music in the background, something to sip as you slip into your Birkenstocks and float away. Not to harsh the mellow, but aargh!

Regardless of how it sounds, wheat beer has brewski credentials. It is the quintessential summer quencher, just right for Nascar races and baseball games.

In no particular order:
1) Yeah. It sounds "almost bready." As does beer in general, since beer is ... almost bread.
2) No, thanks. But I'll be happy to imagine the Heidelberg, if that'd help.
3) Spent a lot of time in the old infield of late, have we? (No, not the Tinker to Evers to Chance variety.)

Dear desk: It's OK to raise questions about substance. Even in twee tales from featureland.

(Footnote: It's also all right to follow standard American English punctuation, which calls for a comma before the coordinating conjunction in Oats are used in stout and rye is used in Eastern Europe to make kvass. That's how you tell us poor Birkenstock-free proles that you're beginning another independent clause, not completing a pretty plausible compound object: Oats are used in stout and rye.)

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Also, is it NYT style to lowercase NASCAR, even though it's an acronym?

Or has living in Daytona Beach warped my mind?

And maybe because I'm not a big beer drinker, but since it's made from all sorts of grains, is it that shocking to have wheat? Doesn't Sam Adams make a summer wheat ale? I just think this is a non-story. . .

4:43 PM, July 13, 2006  
Blogger fev said...

If an acronym is a proper name longer than four letters, NYT style uses only the initial cap. So NASCAR and UNESCO are in the same boat. And yes, lots of brewers turn out nice wheats. (I might just go have one, come to think of it.)

This one strikes me as another case of the Times trying to talk down and failing. Grr.

6:04 PM, July 13, 2006  
Blogger melissa angle said...

You know what bothers me? The colliding stereotypes. Spa goers wouldn't drink beer and hippies and wouldn't go to spas. I second your Grr, Fred.

9:32 AM, July 16, 2006  

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