• mechoman444@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    It’s the same thing with “unsweet,” which has apparently become the universal term at food establishments when you want unsweetened tea. I’m in the American South, so I encounter this constantly.

    But what the hell is “unsweet”? What does that even mean? Did they sweeten it and then somehow take the sweetness back out? Was it accomplished through evaporation? Reverse osmosis? Some sort of industrial-scale anti-sugar process?

    “Unsweet” isn’t a word.

    So when I order, I specifically say, “unsweetened tea,” and the server inevitably responds, “Unsweet?”

    “Gotcha.”

    No. You got nothing. I said unsweetened.

    • starik@lemmy.today
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      7 hours ago

      Words are often shortened. It reduces the number of vowels and makes communication quicker and easier. Do you also have an issue with these?:

      math
      gym
      bike
      fridge
      TV
      ad
      lab
      info
      photo

      • bitfucker@programming.dev
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        3 hours ago

        Photo is a word on its own tho so that also creates confusion if you shortened photography to photo. “Oh, I do photo for a living”.

    • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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      11 hours ago

      There is a lot of unsense out there these days. I saw “unsweet” on my favorite cold brewed coffee.