Winespeak jargon: which word or phrase do you dislike most?

for example, Word will hyphenate "winemaker" as "wine-maker" or as "winemak-er" if it occurs at the end of a sentence.

Only if you want it to, Bob.

It is a user option that seems to be selected on the Word you are using.

From Word help:

About hyphenation
If a word is too long to fit on the end of a line, Microsoft Word moves the word to the beginning of the next line instead of hyphenating it. However, you can use the hyphenation feature to insert hyphens to eliminate gaps in justified text or to maintain even line lengths in narrow columns. You can insert an individual optional hyphen or an individual nonbreaking hyphen, or you can let Word hyphenate all or part of a document for you.

Using automatic hyphenation

When you turn on automatic hyphenation, Word automatically inserts hyphens where they are needed in the document. If you later edit the document and change line breaks, Word rehyphenates the document

i vote for 'bold' - which may be more 'label speak' or even 'server speak'. but it doesn't nearly get me going as much as 'vinegERette' - i really want to kill when i hear that.

"pleasure-hater"

Damn straight. Give me something austere, restrained, sharp, biting, cutting, bone dry, and rocky any day. To hell with lush, opulent, soft and sweet. I want masochism in a bottle!

"liquid Viagra" gets the award for silliest neologism.

I'll second the nomination.

That gives new meaning to the phrase "a stiff drink."

[Jenise]

My nomination: juice.

It's the only wine word I know that makes my skin crawl. While I understand that most professions end up creating something of a language of their own, a code, a way of talking that says "I'm an insider" that separates us from them, the substitution of the mono-syllable 'juice' for the equally easy 'wine which hardly requires shorthand, and which is used by nearly every distributor and wine store guy in my area, grates. Most haven't given any thought to it, I am sure, and are therefore without malicious intention, but its origins strike me as anti-geek speak and something of a put-down, as if to say, "it's all just juice", a mere commodity and how they get us idiots to part with our money, which is, after all, the whole point. Worse, it's usually accompanied by other popular but vocabulary-challenged slang, i.e. this is awesome juice.

I'd like to nominate "Parkerized" and any other "big-name critic"-ized terms. While it may be an easy shorthand for certain attributes of wine, I think it gives the named critic too much credit, and takes the focus off the person behind this wine. Just my 2 cents!

I'd like to nominate "Parkerized" and any other "big-name critic"-ized terms. While it may be an easy shorthand for certain attributes of wine, I think it gives the named critic too much credit, and takes the focus off the person behind this wine. Just my 2 cents!

"Hmmmm, I kinda liked the term Garrbled in association with wine tasting notes," Tom said ducking the intercontinental ballistic wine bottles being tossed at him.

[Jenise]

Garrbled!!! That's brilliant! We could make a list of Garrbled winespeak. I'll start: lemon-squirt acidity....

[Robin Garr]

Garrbled!!! That's brilliant! We could make a list of Garrbled winespeak. I'll start: lemon-squirt acidity....

[Jenise]

I can't really think of any term that bothers me. Its all language...and wine tech speak is especially rich in its use of adjectives. I mean how many more ways can we come up with to describe a fermented grape beverage?

Richard

Garrbled!!! That's brilliant! We could make a list of Garrbled winespeak. I'll start: lemon-squirt acidity....

My father hates French words being sprinkled about in English conversation.

Your father must have a very hard time -- beef, pork, hotel, hospital, royal -- French being a main feeder language into modern English since about 1066. He has my sympathies!

It always took a bit of effort to decide whether which of the three forms shoemaker should take: "shoe maker", "shoe-maker" or "shoemaker". "Shoemaker" is the modern way to go.

Sure, Bob -- that's just the normal historical pattern in English. To day, to-day, today. (That case took a few hundred years.) There's explicit information about it in one of those dictionaries we were talking about so recently.

None of the terms in your orignal list particularly bother me. Maybe it is my background as a chemist, but the term "pure" has always come across as pretentious, given that wine is always a complex mixture of substances. You might accuse me of being literal minded, so if that is the case then wouldn't pure be similar to saying 'simple'?

And yet I am still guilty of using 'pure' on occasion and tend to understand what people are getting at when they use it!

"It is a user option that seems to be selected on the Word you are using. "

It was tedious to do so in Word 12 years ago when I found this fascinating hobby, Peter, and it isn't much better now with the overly complicated Word program.

The only way to get it to look beautiful, especially if you justify both right and left margins, is to go line by line and check for hyphens. [It's been awhile, but my memory is that the Search function doesn't find Word inserted hyphens -- that might be wrong.]

Then, if you fix one word, it may change others in the same paragraph, and one has to check a second time.

I've basically given up, and no longer right justify nor permit program hyphenation. There are just too many compound words these days, and it seems very artificial to use "wine maker" when so many folks use "winemaker", just for a bit of aesthetics.

[I know my old hot metal training is showing here. ]

Regards, and thanks for the tip. Bob

"Sure, Bob -- that's just the normal historical pattern in English. To day, to-day, today. (That case took a few hundred years.) "

Thanks Max -- news to me -- I'll take a look for amusement and education.

Regards, Bob

"Garrbled'

Brilliant, Gary.

Hmm . . . that could be a good one . . . just need some more lyrics and a little music in the background, something like . . .

Sleeper of the vintage
Keeper of the zoo
Ready to relieve 'em
Of a sou or two

Watering the wine
Making up the weight
Pickin' up their knick-knacks
When they can't see straight

Great job with these lyrics, Keith. Made my day.

-- Clark

Garrbled!!! That's brilliant! We could make a list of Garrbled winespeak. I'll start: lemon-squirt acidity....

Funny you should mention that, Jenise. I always look for that comment and get upset when bossman does not use it!

The one that's always baffled me is "briary", typically used to describe a Zin. Briary means thorny or prickly. Huh?

However, now it's getting to the point that when I hear "fruit-forward", it's all I can do not to scream. Surely the most overused term of all, does it have any meaning left? I was so annoyed by this one I actually used up a question on our Wine Opinions consumer panel to find out. We asked people:
"A wine described as fruit-forward is likely to be:" and gave them a bunch of descriptors. The results were as follows:
Sweet - 15%
Light in body and color - 10%
Full-bodied and rich in flavor - 36%
Low in tannin - 25%
Made from very ripe grapes -21%
Have little or no oak flavor - 26%
Fresh and young - 35%
Don't know - 23%
Other - 7%
(note that you could choose more than one descriptor).

"Sleeper of the vintage
Keeper of the zoo
Ready to relieve 'em
Of a sou or two

Watering the wine
Making up the weight
Pickin' up their knick-knacks
When they can't see straight "

Excellent, Keith. Thanks!

Garrbled!!! That's brilliant! We could make a list of Garrbled winespeak. I'll start: lemon-squirt acidity....

Hmmmm, maybe someone with the power (or the Shvartz) should move the (in)appropriate postings to Friends and Fun under the rubric "Garrbled Winespeak," hmmm, huh?

I really dislike any marketing terms that look to over reach a bit. I.e. Ultra Premium and Ultra Rare.

I really dislike any marketing terms that look to over reach a bit. I.e. Ultra Premium and Ultra Rare.

That (I understand) is what prompted the 1971 reform of German wine labeling laws, after the growth of out-of-control unofficial claims of "premium" or "finest" wines, etc. Funny thing, now a few years have gone by, and bottles from there now increasingly single out specific wines via gold capsules, "Auslese ***" as distinct from mere Auslese, separating and drawing attention to different lots of the same wine, etc. etc.

Mineral. It has become the cliche of wine descriptions.