Thursday, January 05, 2006

260 - Chips, and More Chips


What beautiful handwriting. Really, I mean it. Mine looks like an inebriated spider has stumbled across the page, but this shopper has lovely handwriting. What they don't have, though is any shame.

The list begins reasonably sanely, as a combination of necessary homewares, and then moving onto food for the cupboard. It all goes wrong after "chips" though. "ketchup" is fair enough: chips and nice with ketchup. But what is with "chips vinegar"?

There could be three possible explanations. Firstly, the shopper wishes to buy chips specifically to eat with vinegar. Second, they want vinegar that is specifically to eat with chips. The third option is that they want chips pre-flavoured with vinegar. If the list arrangement is anything to go by, I reckon it must be option three...but I've never known of chips that are pre-flavoured with vinegar.

The problem is that the shopper has maintained a system of one-item-per-line down the whole of the list, even going so far as to separate "chips" from "ketchup". "Chips vinegar" MUST be a single item. Wow!

8 comments:

cyndi{JS} said...

Hello, I live in the USA where we call potato chips, chips and there are vinegar flavored ones. It's possible that you may have an american there buying potato chips that are vinegar flavored. Hope this helps make sense of it. Love you site.

cyndi

Scotty said...

Ahhh, that's an interesting comment. However, could you also confirm whether such things as "plasters", which start the list, exist in the USA. I was under the impression they were called "band aids".

I could be horrendously wrong, of course. Or perhaps the shopper is half American and half British..?

Anonymous said...

yes, there are salt and vinegar chips

cyndi{JS} said...

plasters? hmmm that's what is used in building, never heard band-aids referred to in that manner. Will do what I can to help :)

Gledster said...

It's possible the shopper was an American who meant crisps. Another possibility for the "chip vinegar" line is that the shopper had a preferred brand of vinegar that they had with their chips, but couldn't remember the exact brand. However, when in the supermarket, seeing "chip vinegar" on the list will take them to the vinegar selection and there they will see their preferred brand.

Seems logical to me anyway! :P

Anonymous said...

Surely "chip vinegar" is brown malt(ed) vinegar as in a traditional fish and chip shop 9as opposed to sherry vinegar, white wine vinegar red wine vinegar and the numerous other types of vinegar on offer today.

Anonymous said...

I always have Sarsons Malt on chips, but only on chips. I use Balsamic for everything else, so I'd write 'chip vinegar' on a list to ensure I bought the right thing!

Anonymous said...

I am american, and not to reiforce the things said previously, but we do have Salt and Vinegar flavored potato chips. And when you say "chips" British people normally mean potato wedges, or "fries" as americans call them, right?
Awesome site btw.