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8.07.2005 ||> Why is sliced bread so great?
I was reminded of a funny cross-cultural issue the other day as I was in my typical after-work, tv-watching coma. I saw a commercial whose tagline said that the product (car? medication? who remembers?) was the best thing since sliced bread.
Flashback to two years ago. I was handing out a Newsweek article about the rise and subsequent lameness of Mtv. I was doing a semester on music, but with the underhanded intention of getting my students to listen to more than just Britney Spears (girls) or Ramstein (boys). They hated the article. It was too long and it had too many colloquisms in it. But the lecture where I had to explain to them what "the best thing since sliced bread" meant was particularly memorable for its discomfort. First, no one in Uzbekistan bought sliced bread. If it had come presliced, it would have gotten stale or moldy about twice as fast since bread there has no preservatives. They simply tore the bread when they needed it and ate.
The whole time I stood there explaining it to their incredulous faces, I felt like the most stupid human being alive. When I finished, I realized that they were right. It was stupid to buy presliced bread. Is it really that difficult to simply slice it one's self? Almost anything is better than bread like that.
So when I saw the commercial I thought, Well, I certainly hope that it's better than sliced bread.
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