Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

A noun is perhaps not a definition but the most popular tag used in a given context for exemplars for which the tag is popular.

This is why legal documents need to define terms rather than simply rely upon 'common sense'.

A transistor is a sandwich.
Plywood is a sandwich.
Two slices of bread and a filling is a sandwich.

A single slice of bread folded over a filling is a sandwich (simply because it's so similar). A particularly fussy topologist might argue with you, however.

But, like a split roll, is a pancake, or disc of unleavened bread folded over a filling a sandwich?

Let's put it this way. I wouldn't tag such constructions with the label 'sandwich'.

I reserve that label for anything that looks like an assembly of slices separated by fillings. I wouldn't include filled rolls and burritos.

However, I would expect a sandwich shop to provide filled rolls. I wouldn't expect it to provide burritos.

So now we have a divergence between 'sandwich shop' and 'sandwich'.

This is why human languages are not rigid programming languages, but vocalised telepathy.

"Vocalized telepathy" is a nice phrase.

Tags have the advantage of letting something be "73% in a category," to use Josh Schachter's phrase. A handful of people might tag a photo of plywood as "sandwich," while many more might tag it "plywood," "wood" and "building material." The assemblage of tags can reflect the topology of meaning better than any rigid categorization scheme can.

I tell you what, you can have the US variation with the 'z', and I'll have the UK variation with the 's'.

;-)

Google has never heard of the conjuction apparently, though 'vocal telepathy' is not unknown.

As ever, our language demonstrates its ever expanding frontiers remain nevertheless within reach of those daring to breach them.

Regardless of sandwiches: Congrats!!! on getting your final, copy-edited version in--an accomplishment worth much more than parenthetical mention.

I recall a similar conversation I had not too long ago about when a cake started and stopped being a cake. Is a muffin a cake? If we say that a muffin is distinguished by its size - a muffin of a certain girth metaphysically transforms into a cake - how about a loaf of bread? Bread is not cake (as Marie Antoinette apparently discovered), but at what point of sweetness, say, would a fruit bread become that which we would refer to as cake? How about fruitcake? If you say that yeast is the distinguishing factor for bread, what about unleavened bread, or bread leavened with baking soda/powder?

And is a sandwich made with two slices of unleavened fruitcake-bread-muffin, filled with marshmallow fluff still a sandwich? No wonder philosophers go hungry these days. (I think it's time for lunch.)

The Great Jaffa Cake/Biscuit duality from Wikipedia

Cake or biscuit?

Under UK law, no VAT is charged on biscuits and cakes — they are "zero rated". Chocolate covered biscuits, however, are classed as luxury items and are subject to VAT at 17.5%. McVitie's classed its Jaffa Cakes as cakes, but in 1991, this was challenged by HM Customs and Excise in court.[1] This may have been because Jaffa Cakes are about the same size and shape as some types of biscuit. The question which had to be answered was what criteria should be used to class something as a cake or biscuit. McVitie's defended the classification of Jaffa Cakes as a cake by producing a giant Jaffa Cake to illustrate that their Jaffa Cakes were simply mini cakes.

They also argued that the distinction between cakes and biscuits is simply that cakes go hard when stale, whereas biscuits go soft. It was demonstrated that Jaffa Cakes become hard when stale and McVitie's won the case.[2]

The issue was revisited in an article entitled 'Are Jaffa Cakes really biscuits?' published in the Journal of Unlikely Science (Volume 1, issue 7, 2005). [3] The article attempted to classify biscuits via a scientific analysis of various features (size, shape, filling etc.) and determined that the Jaffa Cake should be regarded as a biscuit, or 'pseudobiscuit'.

"The assemblage of tags can reflect the topology of meaning better than any rigid categorization scheme can."

Yeah--assuming you're using rigid to mean "so restrictive that it gets in the way of reflecting the topology of meaning" ;-)

Tag systems, of course, can be "rigid" too.

I think the more general equation might be more like:

Aggregating more people with more categorization options (e.g., everyone and their own terms for categorizing sandwiches) into a composite better captures different nuances of collective meaning than aggregating less people with less categoriation options (e.g., one person from the USDA using the official 2006 USDA food vocabulary).

***

P.S. I hope you'll start a "beyond everything, even more is miscellaneous" website or wiki with posts like these, to agument the book!

Jar, I've been putting off putting up www.everythingismiscellaneous.com because I was working on the book., Now I'm catching up on stuff. Soon I'll put up the site, with _something_ on it, although I'm not yet sure what.

Yeah, I know how that is. And, congrats on finishing the book!

Although this could backfire and end up being a burden on you, it might be great to create an "everything is miscellaneous" wiki that, to start with, invites people to contribute examples, like this sandwich story.

I am excited by the idea of a miscellaneous organization of miscellaneous ancedotes about organization being miscellaneous--or something like that!

I hate to interrupt a private conversation on a blog but . . .

The topic is the definition of a sandwich. The original argument invoked ethnicity. Is this appropriate for our multicultural nation in the 21st century? When does a culture move on from its roots as it evolves? By outlawing slavery? Forcing automobiles on everyone by removing trolley tracks? By "paving over Paradise"?

Springboarding from this might indicate another of the rear-guard culture wars we have "enjoyed" the last decade. "Stop anything even remotely empowering of the rabble: the internet, stem cell research, women's choice, minority rights, the interent, etc." was the credo.

One (and preferably more than one) can hold back the inevitable march of progress (even in law) only so long. Then (in the same vein as W's down-home usage of "thumped" ) it'll be Katey-bar-the-door when the wave overwhelms the conservatives (which they are by definition in any such context).

This has happened repeatedly in history. The real "Long March of Progress" saw the Magna Carta (actually occuring repeatedly counting csars, dictators, and other "I am the nation under God" types), algebra, solar-centric astronomy, fireworks, steam power, metal refinement, water and sewage treatment, logic, and the discovery of bacteria among many other landmarks.

The landmarks are now coming faster than most people can process them. The Singularity is in sight. Just try and stop it!! "Aristotle's sandwich" is a nice image for where we are. The recent political "obstinance" in the USA is the quintessential attempt at stopping the inevitable Long March of Progress.

No, I'm not off-topic. Much. This seems to be just part a much larger evolution. The sandwich issue and technological progress are part of (and opposite sides of) the same thing.

Wanting to back the a "simpler time and place" is outdated thinking and impossible without completely destroying "life as we know it". We're on another roll. Order a burrito sandwich. Without transistors and plywood. But extra green picante sauce.

73%, that's nice. Didn't Joshua used to have a blog called burrito, delicious serendipity?

Burritos, while filling much the same role in the dietary/culinary worlds, are clearly not sandwiches. This is clearly a case of a large corporation trying to squash competition.

If the store that had opened was a Quizno's or a Subway, which clearly do sell sandwiches, although maybe not by the legal definition above, I think the judge's ruling would have been different.

One question is whether Qdoba can later opt to add sandwiches to its menu. If it is primarily a burrito shop, would that mean that it can sell sandwiches as a option. Also, can a food vendor that clearly has something other than sandwiches be allowed to open, if it has any sandwiches on its menu??

BTW, on a totally off-topic note... your blog doesn't render properly in Safari on a Mac. However it does render properly in Camino and FireFox. Just thought you might want to know.

Dan

AdriftAtSea, I'll check into the Safari problem. Thanks.

The burrito question is not so simple. This is a case not about what is a sandwich in a semantic sense, but in a commercial sense. Would anyone claim that a shop selling what we call "wraps" is not selling some form of sandwich, and hence within both the spirit and the letter of Panera's non-competition clause? A wrap is just a different kind of sandwich. A burrito differs from a wrap only in that its ends are closed, and that its ingredients differ from most sandwich ingredients.

I think one could try to demonstrate that the issue was not competition on the sale of sandwiches, but competition between sandwich shops.

One need then only demonstrate that sandwich shops sold sandwiches and other similar snacks (baked flour/water mixture accompanying an edible filling).

One could demonstrate the rarity of a sandwich shop that sold only sandwiches, and the frequency of sandwich shops that sold wraps, etc. That 'sandwich shop' was actually an abbreviation of 'sandwich and other filled bread assembly shop'.

Incidentally, I should correct my earlier comments. I would actually expect to find wheat flour tortillas in a sandwich shop (nowadays anyway).

This is because I have been mistaking 'burrito' to mean 'taco'. My Mexican language skills aren't that hot.

I wouldn't expect to find tacos in a sandwich shop.

Sandwich shop: wheatflour/filling assemblies - especially sandwiches.

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wow that sandwhich sounds delious