AKA grocery list.

This post on Language Log about a sign for warm soda reminded me of this photo.

But what’s up with “warm soda?” A trip to my local Shoppers Drug Mart store revealed that “warm soda” is, as you might have guessed, soda sitting on a shelf at room temperature. What comparison class could have motivated that choice of unappealing adjective? I suppose you could think of the normal temperature of soda as the stuff that comes out of your fridge, ready to drink. In which case, room temperature soda would indeed be “warm”. And certainly, if I were offering a guest a glass of soda that came straight out of my cupboard, I’d probably be remiss in not warning him that it’s “warm”.

One commenter suggested that having a sign for warm soda was helpful, as it suggests that maybe there’s some non-warm soda somewhere in the store and maybe you should go look for it.  My concern is that the thought of warm soda, though more so warm beer, just puts me out of the mood for a sugary (alcoholicky) drink.

I’ve been thinking a lot about scalar adjectives the last couple days and wishing for any kind of beer, but the working part of the semester has definitely started, so the adjectives take precedence over the alcohol.  Blahblah, I better get back to reading this dissertation on modality.  But the LL post is, as always, worth a read.

But scalar adjectives like warm or tall are trickier. Is something “tall” if it’s 37 centimeters in height? Three meters? Can’t tell. Depends on whether we’re talking about a cup of coffee or a tree—or, for that matter, a tree in a lush South American rainforest or a tree growing just below treeline in the Alaskan wilderness. Nor can you tell whether 12 degrees centigrade is “warm”. I can assure you that it is, if it’s the temperature of a mountain lake at 2400 meters of elevation, even in July.

Maybe the signs could read “Beer that you can drink right now and will be totally delicious” and “Beer that you can drink right now and it won’t really be all that delicious, but hey, you’d still be drinking beer and not stumbling through that dissertation, dummy.”