You think you are taking a sip of your water, but you reached for the wrong glass and really sip your beer. You are expecting water, but you get beer. We've all had that feeling. Is there a word for it?

Cognitive disconnect?

Wordmatic

Drunk?

Grateful?

What if you're intending a sip of beer and instead get a mouthful of Budweiser?

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Originally posted by arnie:
What if you're intending a sip of beer and instead get a mouthful of Budweiser?

spit-take

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What if you're intending a sip of beer and instead get a mouthful of Budweiser? Red Face

Nausea is the name for this feeling (which I experienced in Chicago last month)

Yes, Richard, and you were a good sport about it, too.

"Cognitive disconnect" seems to be the best idea, but I wonder if there is something better. I wonder if another language has a word for this concept, if English doesn't.

Kalleh, I wonder the same thing: is there a better word for cognitive dissonance of the taste buds?

WM

Cognitive disconnect is close, but I prefer cognitive dissonance.

Asa, swilling Tsing Tao and not worrying about whether Richard and the rest of you "beer snobs" would approve!

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Asa, swilling Tsing Tao and not worrying about whether Richard and the rest of you "beer snobs" would approve

I wonder why it is that those who have an admiration for the finer things of life are so often called snobs?

Drink good beer (usually costing less than its chemical fizz equivalent) and you're a beer snob; drive a secondhand Rolls-Royce (costing less than a new Ford) and you're a car snob; go to a classical music concert (costing less than would a pop concert) and you're a music snob. I have never been able to understand the rationale.

Tongue well in cheek, RE!

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Drink good beer (usually costing less than its chemical fizz equivalent)

While I see your point, Richard, this above is absolutely untrue in the U.S.; the opposite is very much the case and is why our young adults tend to buy the chemical fizz types.

My mistake in this post was my example. I should have used water and Coke or something else, knowing our love of beer discussions.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Next time you are looking for an example try tonic water and mineral water. I once saw cat order a mineral water and be given a tonic water. There was a definite "cognitive disconnect" when she took a drink from it.

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While I see your point, Richard, this above is absolutely untrue in the U.S.; the opposite is very much the case and is why our young adults tend to buy the chemical fizz types.

It's one of the many examples that demonstrates the extraordinary clevereness of the marketing of A-B and other chemical-fizz manufacturers.

In the USA Dudweiser is a cheap product and often bought by those who simply want a cheap drink to quench their thirst and/or get drunk.

In the UK, where Dudweiser, Swiller, Curse and the like are relatively recent insurgents, they found out through excellent research that the ignorance of the majority meant that they could position their offerings as quality, premium products, commanding a premium price. And the ignoramuses fell for the deceit, in their millions. Dudweiser in the UK costs more than such masterpieces as Fullers 1845 and Hopback Summer Lightning and outsells them all. The extra price is, of course, simply extra profit and the A-B bean counters must have smiles as wide as the Atlantic every time they look at their UK sales figures.

Of course, the same thing can be said of many other products; there are millions who are prepared to buy bottled water, at a price that exceeds that of petrol, when they could get exactly the same water for almost nothing simply by turning on the tap at their sink. The multi-billion dollar bottled water market has been created solely by marketing; when I was young the only bottled water that existed was Vichy (drunk by the peculiar French, we used to think) and it was not until the 1950s that the clever people at Perrier discovered that they could take the water that bubbled out of the ground in Nimes, put it into bottles and then sell it to the gullible British and Americans for lots of money - simply by using clever marketing. Now every restaurateur and publican rubs his or her hand in great glee when some gullible customer asks for mineral water as he or she knows that they will be paying huge amounts for something that costs almost nothing.

Although there is much in marketing that is laudable, the exploitation of the gullibility of the ignorant is its darker side.

The art of great marketing is to simultaneously invent a problem and a solution for it, then to convince the great mass of the public that the former exists so that you can sell them the latter.

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Originally posted by Richard English:...
In the UK, where Dudweiser, Swiller, Curse and the like are relatively recent insurgents, they found out through excellent research that the ignorance of the majority meant that they could position their offerings as quality, premium products, commanding a premium price. And the ignoramuses fell for the deceit, in their millions...

RE, I am truly stunned. Back in my college days it was common knowledge among those who had done any traveling that the swill supposedly gleaned from our polluted American rivers barely even served the purpose of inebriation, let alone pleasing the taste buds. I used to spend the extra bucks for Beck's (the only import around back then), but after my first trip to England, I realized I was hopelessly in love with whatever darkish suds the pubs of Cornwall were serving. The closest I could come stateside was... nada. (except once when a colleague sneaked a case of Guiness back from Ireland). These marketers could probably sell invisible clothes to an emperor. There is an oatmeal stout at Trader Joe's which is not bad, but mostly I have stuck to red wine ever since. Any recommendations?

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........ it was not until the 1950s that the clever people at Perrier discovered that they could take the water that bubbled out of the ground in Nimes, put it into bottles and then sell it to the gullible British and Americans for lots of money - simply by using clever marketing.

I have to take issue with you here. Come on over to Union County, NJ and taste Elizabethtown Water's product. Or better yet, gargle a sample of the sulferous bilge that passes for tap water in the Finger Lakes, upstate NY (where I'm from). I have a filter on the cold water line in my kitchen sink, & it makes a huge difference. Bottled water, if I'm out of the house.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bethree5,

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There is an oatmeal stout at Trader Joe's which is not bad, but mostly I have stuck to red wine ever since. Any recommendations?

Apart from imports of UK beers, there are now hundreds of wonderful craft beers brewed in the USA. Had you been able to attend the Convention you'd have sampled a tidy few

To find out what choices you have try here http://www.realbeer.com/ Both Kalleh and I post here regularly and you'll find that the contributors are enthusiastic, erudite and well-mannered (a bit like Wordcrafters, in fact)

So far as tap water is concerned, if yours is as bad as you say, try filtering it AND THEN BOTTLE IT. Stand the bottle in a fridge for a day and then try. I doubt you'll be able to tell the difference between that and bottled water. Temperature is a critical determinant of water flavour - the colder the less taste (which is why Dudweiser is always served ice-cold) When our local water company run blind tastings they simply put their water into a bottle and chill it (they don't filter it). Every year they have run this test, their water beats all the overpriced bottled rubbish.

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Originally posted by BobHale:
The art of great marketing is to simultaneously invent a problem and a solution for it, then to convince the great mass of the public that the former exists so that you can sell them the latter.

Two prime examples are Lifebuoy soap and B.O., and Listerine and "chronic halitosis".

Listerine, by the way, was at first sold as a floor cleaner and as a cure for gonorrhea. It didn't take off until the marketing boys invented halitosis.

Another prime example of the salesman's invention of a problem that his product will solve is The Music Man, in which the salesman did NOT say, "Ya wanna buy musical instruments and uniforms?" but rather said, "Ya got Trouble right here in River City, and that starts with "T" and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for "Pool." Get your boys out of the Pool Hall and into a Boys' Band and your Trouble will disappear ....

The most recent example I can think of is the way that everyone now seems to think that your phone, your camera, your television, your radio, your personal music player*, your internet access, your e-mail, your games console**, your personal organiser***, your video/movie player and everything else under the sun MUST be combined into one single gadget.

Watching a teenager interviewed on TV the other day she said "I can't have that [particular model of phone], I'd just die of embarrassment. It doesn't do anything."

Given the fact that a mere ten years ago there were no mobile phones it's quite remarkable how quickly the public have been conned into believing that they must have a hundred and one built in gadgets on the latest piece of technology or they will die of embarrassment.


*,**,*** all, in themselves solutions to nonexistent problems

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your personal organiser***

I wouldn't be without mine. Although it's quite possible to manage without a personal organiser, to have the one diary-size item that acts as a diary, address book, calculator, jotter, world clock, sketchpad, audio recorder and notebook is handy. And bear in mind that I never need to transfer the information into next year's diary and, if I do change my organiser, I can restore all its data in seconds from my PC.

And there's much more that it will do that I've not even mentioned.

Richard, a marketing executive's dream customer.

Back to the beer rants, a friend in Californica sent this to me: A 2006 study found that the average American walks about
> 900 miles per year.
> Another study found that Americans drink an average of 22
> gallons of beer per year.
>
> That means Americans, on average, get 41 miles per
> gallon.
> Not too bad !!
No mention whether the stuff was Schludwiller or something Kalleh or Richard would drink!

One measly example...what was I thinking?!