Once upon a time, on an unassuming Thursday not long before lunchtime, a proposal to Dominique Logan* that she buy a salad for lunch was all-too swiftly rebuffed by the misinformed proclamation that she had a ‘problem’ with ‘paying money for salads.‘ Salads, continued Ms Logan, like a freight train hurtling down a path of philological devastation, are not worthy of her currency due to their lack of substance. It was at that moment that Ms Logan, bless her ignorance, showed her true colours as another cog in the anti-linguistic salad conspiracy.
This misuse of the term ‘salad’, regrettably, is not confined to the above anecdote. It has become a widespread issue among the food-consuming population of the English-speaking world and, second only to climate change (a likely UN conspiracy), poses the greatest risk to our way of life since the advent of the immigrant.
I have therefore decided to take the matter of this ‘word terrorism’ into my own hands. I am writing to set the record straight: a salad is not just an open assortment of cold vegetables.
In these calamitous postmodern times, there are those language descriptivists who would openly posit the above definition. These language saboteurs, known in context as ‘salad compositionalists’, disparage not only the hallowed salad tradition, but their Latin-speaking ancestors who conceived the very term they purport to comprehend.
Salads are more prevalent in the food world than the Big Sandwich cartel would have you believe. We need only look to the etymological root of the term to learn its true meaning. ‘Salad’ is a derivation of ‘sal’, the Latin word for salt. It can thus be inferred that it is not the composition of a dish that gives it a ‘saladic’ nature, but it’s salty seasoning - added at the moment of completion.
The implications are clear: any food onto which salt is peppered (a pun for your pleasure) qualifies as salad. Salted tofu is a salad. Pumpkin soup shortly becomes a salad. That popcorn you purchased last weekend at the pictures? Salad. And sushi, the ever-popular Japanese delicacy, onto which soy sauce (the saltiest condiment of all) is customarily poured, is, undoubtedly, a salad.
If I have managed to persuade even one noble soul through this humble letter, I would consider it a great success to this worthy cause.
*Not a fictional name. We must name and shame such subversive agents as is required. Salad is not a game for the fainthearted. Dominique Logan is one of many and must be stopped.
This is f#@%ed. SA Lad needs spend one day in the hospitality world to realise the kind of damage he/she is going to cause with garbage like this. Read a dictionary dude.