Monday, October 27, 2014

2337 Spago


I like it when I find out new words. Or the unexpected meanings of words I've taken for granted for years. Two of them that came up lately were spago and e-juice.

E-juice first. I encountered it recently on a sign at one of the new e-cigarette or vape places. They were introducing new flavors for fall and encouraging folks to come in and sample their new "e-juices."

Eeyew is more like it. 

For some reason or another I'm only comfortable with the word "juice" when it refers to something fruity. Other juices smack of noxiousness. Like tobacco juice. Or bodily juices. E-juice just sounds e-yucky.  

Then there's spago. I was at a wine tasting event not long ago and the demonstrator guy was introducing a fizzy wine he said was called spago. Or at least it had spago in the name, I wasn't paying really close attention as I was examining the spit bucket and wondering if it had anything to do with the wines I saw on the shelves of the place called red blends.

He said the spago wine was a frizzante wine as opposed to a bubbly wine so it needed less pressure on the cork to hold it in. It didn't require one of those cage things that look like you're giving your wine bottle advanced orthodontia. 

It only required string. "Spago," the wine guy said, "is an Italian word for string. Which is cool, but now I'll never look at that Wolfgang Puck guy with the fancy restaurants the same again. Imagine if we all instantaneously made that translation and realized he was actually naming his restaurants not Spago, but String. 

Maybe he thinks it's funny and has been stringing us along all along.

He's known for his puckish humor.

America, ya gotta love it. 

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