Touch Me I'm [sic]

It has been called to my attention that Mr. Bir Toujour's name does not really make sense. While I'm not a fan of making grammatical errors or misspellings (in any language), I must say: Oh well, too late. Just today I discovered that "volumptuous" is not a word. "Voluptuous", however, is.

My burrito dinner has ruined me; I'm tired, thirsty, and too full. I had set aside part of my dinner burrito for lunch tomorrow, but it wound up being dessert tonight (see, I could have said "desert tonight," but that would be wrong).

Somewhere in this blog I also refer (not "reefer") to a "viscous high school era" or somesuch (thank you, Brown, for pointing this out). While the majority of my high school experience did profoundly suck, I cannot say that it was sticky or glutinous; in fact, it was profoundly free of stick. Many high schoolers do have an abundance of viscocity, in terms of backseat secretions and ejections. But I didn't.

These grammer and usage issues are very much on my mind, since I'm responsible for generating all of the copy for the chocolate factory I work for. Today there was a debate about how to collectively refer to chocolate-covered coffee beans, chocolate-covered cacao nibs, and chocolate-covered ginger (please note that in the company literature I've chosen not to hyphenate chocolate covered, but since this is my blog I can do whatever I want). The chocolate-covered family of products used to be called "Panned Confections". Confectioners use these things called panning drums (machines that rotate at very high speeds) to coat candies with a shell; that's how those little chocolate-covered raisins get so glossy, smooth, and shiny.

But who the hell in the chocolate-buying public knows what a panning drum is? And "Panned Confections" makes me think of headlines like "Disgruntled Food Critic Pans Confections". WE never did come up with a better name for the Panned Family of Products. "Enrobed" is as good as we got.

Tomorrow I'm going to buy myself a good AP Style Guide, or something like it. I do have a recipe style guide, plus the third edition of William Strunk and E.B. White's "The Elements of Style". I am a fan of the Strunkian school of writing, though I surely do not adhere to it myself; I'm not detail-oriented enough. Every time I make a mistake--like using the non-word "volumptuous", as I'm sure I've done--it's because I think I'm right, that "volumptuous" is a word. Assuming and assuming. Sometimes I wonder how all of these language police know these things, and I realize it's because they studied them. The last grammar training I had was my freshman year in high school, I think. I didn't hate grammar, but I did hate to study it. Grammar is like the math of writing. 28 years old and I need to be back in ninth grade English. Grate.