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Here's the thing: I'd argue in the US calling it "feta" is not deceptive, because most people I know have no expectation that feta cheese necessarily comes from some area of Greece.

I have no problem labeling a cheese "feta" if the location of production is clearly indicated. "Feta" is just "shorthand" for "feta-style". Everyone will just call it "feta" anyway. Maybe it doesn't matter if it says "feta-style" or "feta" but the whole thing seems sort of silly to me and a waste of money. It's fighting a losing battle.

It's not that I don't appreciate cheeses from their original locations; it's just that this labeling initiative seems disingenuous to me, in that it seems to be fighting normal processes of language evolution and change.

A better example maybe is cheddar. This is something so entrenched in American vernacular that the idea that we should insist on labeling it "cheddar-style" is clearly unnecessary. When someone says "cheddar" in the US about 99.9% of the time they are referring to a style of cheese, maybe from New York, maybe Vermont, maybe Wisconsin, maybe from England, maybe somewhere else. They're not referring to a location. "Cheddar" and "cheddar" in this context are polysemous homonyms/polysemes.

Arguments about replicating some original flavor of a place of origin are missing the real underlying problem, which is that labeling a product according to its commonly understood meaning, if the location of production is clearly given in the packaging, is not deceptive. Sure, we can tack on "-style" onto everything but it's not going to keep people from ignoring it in speech.

Re:Catalytic Converter Theft on Thursday June 24, 2021 @12:28PM (#27619921)
Our catalytic converter was stolen a few months ago. It was strange because we were parked in front of a government building -- library and courthouse -- and were only inside for about 15 minutes, in the afternoon. Came outside and the car sounded like the muffler was missing, or like I was driving an old tank.

Our new car came with installation of a catshield. When talking to various autobody places, they were skeptical it would matter because if they'd cut out the catalytic converter, they could just cut out the shield. It would be nice to see if they had data on this, but I haven't seen any (I even asked our insurance agency if they knew of any analyses on it but they said they didn't).