At one of the Holiday Bazaars I attended this year, I finally decided to accept the proffered taste of a specific food item (which shall go nameless here, lest many of you know exactly who and what I’m talking about).
This particular vendor has participated in many bazaars, shows, and markets throughout the region, and I have no idea why I never before succumbed to her little paper cuplet with the tiny little spoon.
But on this day, as I took it from her hand, she cheerily announced, “Homemade! From scratch!”
I hesitated, mid-bite, as I tried to grasp the meaning of her comment. Homemade, I understood. From scratch, I understood. But the phrase homemade, from scratch, I just couldn’t quite wrap mind around.
Seriously. The rest of the afternoon, I considered the ramifications of her statement, pondering if there were any other kinds of homemade which were not considered to be from scratch.
Yes, I know I need to get a life. But it was a really boring afternoon, not a lot of people were milling about the bazaar, and I was left to either thoroughly consider her pronouncement, or check my navel for lint. Again.
If you make a cake from a cake mix, it’s not from scratch, is it? But if you make that cake at your home, I suppose you could call it homemade, right? RIGHT?
No, that’s just wrong. So you can see the wordsmith’s dilemma here. The intention of the words, the common usage, the cultural acceptance, has to match the verbiage or there’s a quite a conundrum to contemplate.
Fortunately, I had plenty of time to do just that.