What is Organic Raspberry Fruit Spread?
Organic can modify a single noun like raspberry. The resultant unit can then itself be used as a modifier of fruit spread. That would yield [[organic raspberry] [fruit [spread]]], denoting a fruit spread of the organic raspberry type. Perfectly grammatical; nothing amiss.
The difference is that the stuff referred to by this description needn’t fully satisfy the stringent conditions for being an organic product. Only the raspberries need to pass. And sure enough, the label on Nature’s Promise Organic Raspberry Fruit Spread says:
INGREDIENTS: ORGANIC SUGAR, ORGANIC RASPBERRIES, WATER, FRUIT PECTIN, CITRIC ACID, CALCIUM CHLORIDE.
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January 18, 2013 at 9:10 pm
Donald A. Coffin
For some reason this reminds me of a passage in Dorothy Sayers’ mystery novel, Murder Must Advertise. In which her detective (Lord Peter Winsey), who has taken a copywriting position incognito at an ad agency is explaining advertising copy to his brother, Chief Detective Inspector Charles Parker:
“…Which incidentally brings me to the distinction between the words ‘with’ and ‘from.’ Suppose you are advertising lemonade, or, not to be invidious, we will say perry. If you say ‘Our perry is made from fresh-plucked pears only,’ then it’s got to be made from pears only, or the statement is actionable; if you just say it is made ‘from pears,’ without the ‘only,’ the betting is that it probably made chiefly of pears; but is you say, ‘made with pears,’ you generally mean that you use a peck of pears to a ton of turnips, and the law cannot touch you–such are the iceties of our English tongue.”
January 18, 2013 at 9:11 pm
Donald A. Coffin
That’s his “brother-in-law…”
January 20, 2013 at 3:32 pm
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June 10, 2013 at 3:40 pm
Sara
Hi, I would like your weeks box but I have all the rhubarb I can use, can u sub. with aspraagrus? also do you still have your frozen cherry juice no other fruit in it. I would like a bottle of it if you do. thank you. p.s. how do I get you prepaid???