SC - Medieval Times

[James F. Johnson]

Philip & Susan Troy wrote:

> I've seen commercially bottled "meads" that were honeyed wines. Where
> they got this idea I couldn't say, unless they looked in a bad
> dictionary and saw that mead was honey wine. Is spiced wine made by
> fermenting spices???

Well, to pull out grammar and syntax, if mead was just honey added to
wine, it would be defined as 'honeyed wine' just like the term 'spiced
wine' Too get real technical, mead is not honey wine, nor wine made from
honey. There's a cause for the similarity between 'wine' and 'vine'.
Technically, wine is made from grapes and it's vinefera cousins. Mead is
fermented dilute honey, resembling beer or wine in strength or
character, depending on how it's made. But they use the term wine
connected to honey because wine is a readily known concept. Then there
are all the cousins, pyment, metheglin, and hydromel.....

It comes down to trying to describe mead to someone who's never had it,
using terms they are familiar with. Then a third party comes along and
has their own interpretation of that description. Not exact, and subject
to sequential variations and errors each time it happens. A
characteristic of a living language.

> Hey, this is 'Lainie we're talking about? 'Lainie??? It's never been my
> pleasure to meet the lady, but I always got the impression... well, you
> know... silence? Are you sure you wanna go there?

I think I have a season pass...:)

Seumas