Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 08:18:12 -0700 From: Dan Alford Subject: Re: from Lynne re candy On Thu, 28 Sep 1995, Dennis Baron wrote: > re: Lynne's last comments on (bar of) chocolate-- > I've been thinking about Peppermint Patties (by York, not Chas. Schulz), > which are round, about 2.5 in in diameter (how many cm?), wrapped in silver > foil....I can almost taste them....anyway, to me they are definitely not > bars. But what then are they? Patties, I guess, though that doesn't seem > like a label I would use in informally discussing them. > Fascinating comment, which points I think to what the real weirdness is with these terms. Bar, cup and patty seem to mean very little by themselves; they have to be modified to make any sense. That's candy, we can say. But that's a bar, meaning milky way, that's a cup, meaning a fruit cup, or that's a patty, meaning hamburger, all sound a little weird since for us the shape of something is not always its primary aspect.