Thursday 19 November 2009

As a brief aside...

Gazing admiringly at my bottle/tube of Nivea lotion "for very dry, rough skin", complete with Almond Oil (imagine that - oil from almonds), I notice that it's labelled: "Essentially Enriched". Something about that term, for me, doesn't quite work. Enriched essentially. Can I essentially enrich? Unless it's conversational; say, how are you doing today? Enriched, essentially, thanks. That would, however, demand a comma. None such is given. Referring to the Oxford English Dictionary, one makes little headway: 'essentially', "as an essential attribute or constituent". This would suggest that were my lotion not essentially enriched then it would be something other than itself, which, one assumes, makes the delineation, from the get-go, somewhat redundant. Delving further, 'essentially', as defined by "a marked or eminent degree". Ah, now we're getting somewhere. So the labelling is simply a marketing matrix, a singularization, a purposeful divorce from its competitors. Essentially enriched. Essentially enriched. Hmm...

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