Just say no in Normal entries

There are two words that have been bugging me. I guess it’s not really the words themselves or even common usage, but common eBay useage. Even regular words have lately taken beating on eBay; I blame Trump and the Japanese. You know those funny Japanese translations to English, um, Japanese advertising trying to use English “Joying Love much very good sweetly candy yum colored” which I don’t think are trying to be silly. I mean I don’t think the intent is silly, but they are trying to be silly in an endearing and positive way. My experience with the Japanese and other languages is that they learn them well. And Trump? He always adds in an extra adjective or two to denote a positive or negative attitude, the adjective is usually at a first grade vocabulary level. I’m not calling Trump or the Japanese stupid, I don’t think the Japanese are stupid at all, and, I’m not calling Trump stupid.

Wow, where the fuckwas I going? Oh. Yeah. eBay and overly positive advertising words. The first is vintage. I guess I should say first that most of my eBay cruising of late has been for pipes. It’s possible that vintage mason jars on eBay are vintage. A pipe made in 2012 is not vintage. 90 percent of the time the seller is replacing the word used with vintage. The other word is minty. The only place in English where vintage and Mint mean something other than common useage and even then it’s common, just different, are with wine and coins. A coin is minted, the vintage of the wine just means the year it was taken from the cask and put into bottles (I think, I guess I don’t know. It’s true of Whiskey, that’s why a 20 year old bottle of scotch can be 10 year old scotch, it’s age is based on when it leaves the cask.) and so a bottle of wine can be vintage 2017. When a coin is minted there is nothing about the process that is referred to as “minty”.

If Minty is in fact a word (and it must be, because it means something to you and I; tasting like mint.) it’s not a word that would be desirable in a pipe. Yes, a lot of cigerettes come in menthol, and few cheap ass unwanted cigars might too. But pipes? No fucking way. I think the seller (and it might just be the one guy but his auctions show up a lot) is trying to conjure up an adjective sort of doo-hicky word meaning freshly minted which really only applies to coins or, I suppose, if you were trying to be funny, a mojito “Freshly minted!”

I suppose we’ve had the technology to synthesize a mint flavor, but, shit, that stuff is a weed; cheap, easy to find or grow, easy to process and for something like a mojito you really want the plant more so than the flavor; nobody puts peppermint oil in a mojito, or rather nobody whose mojitos I’d drink.

Shit. Interrupted, burned my hand. Vintage and minty; just say no.