“You may have wondered why Cheez Whiz is called ‘Cheez Whiz’ instead of, say, ‘Cheese Whise.’ I sure haven’t, but God knows what’s going on in that head of yours. Well, there is a reason: truth in labeling. Cheez Whiz shares many of the same characteristics of real cheese, such as, uh, it’s orange, and I suppose you can eat it, if you’re into that sort of thing. But, as it isn’t actually actual cheese by any meaningful definition, or, more importantly, by the FDA definition, the good people at Kraft call it ‘Cheez,’ and don’t get sued. I don’t know what the ‘Whiz’ bit is all about. You can look it up yourself if it’s so damned important to you. I’m not your slave.
I bring this up because I think this is something that could be applied outside the food business. Take television. Now, a lot of people get upset about FOX News, because it isn’t really like other TV news. When you turn on the TV to watch the news, you expect to see some sort of clean-cut, professional-looking, middle-aged eunuch telling you more-or-less the important things that happened today. What you do not expect to see is Brit Hume bobbling his 50 tons of mutant head-flesh around, nor do you expect to hear the queer and implausible stories which emanate therefrom. You don’t expect that, nor should you, but there you are. But wouldn’t the whole problem be solved if FOX News just changed its name to ‘FOX Nooz?’ It’s not ‘news’ proper, but it’s vaguely news-ish, it has some newsy bits, and is even occasionally mistaken for real news. But it’s not ‘news,’ it’s ‘nooz.’ Different thing. So you have nothing to complain about anymore.
by The Poor Man [via Dead Parrot Society]