1422 Warning Ad

I was reading a coffee pot the other day and I discovered something unsettling. By reading, I mean I was noticing the French and English words on the pot. You know how you sometimes inadvertently learn things about foreign languages and your own by seeing them side by side?
In this case, it had to do with the word “warning” on the pot. You know, lawsuit prevention stuff, like the coffee pot may be hot. Or that it was glass and if it broke you may cut yourself on a shard. And the standard electrical appliance warnings, like you shouldn’t operate the coffeemaker while sleeping or take a bath with it.
Although that was odd since the coffeemaker had an automatic start function so it could make coffee right before you woke up, so in effect you were operating it while you were sleeping.
In any event, I learned the French word for “warning” appears to be “avertissement.” Which looks suspiciously like the English “advertisement.” I went to an online French/English dictionary and sure enough, “avertissement” means “warning.”
But you translate the English “advertisement” back to French and it’s publicite’. Which is like “publicity.” Advertisement and publicity as synonyms in English makes sense now. But looking at the French you get the feeling “advertisement” originally meant “warning.”
So all those ads stuffing your mailbox started out like the warning label you see on electrical appliances? How far we’ve come. Ads were actually warnings.
So in the old days, “two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun” would have been a warning against a heart attack.
And the coffee pot would’ve also warned me of the rich full-bodied mountain-grown high blood pressure fluid lurking inside.
America, ya gotta love it.