“…we’re constantly impressed with the leaps and bounds being made in the world of vegan baking.” [1]
I happened upon this somewhere on the web today, and it caught my attention. But why? I’m not vegan or vegetarian, and would probably never consider becoming either. I do have a good friend who is vegan, but I’ve never baked for her and don’t particularly intend to (sorry Mads). I don’t even like cakes very much.
One can find things on the web that are far more absurd, amusing and stupid, but something about the bland affectedness of this phrase really grabbed me. “We’re constantly impressed.” Really? What do you mean? The extent to which you are impressed never changes? Every time you hear about the latest leap or bound in vegan baking, you are impressed, just like you were last time, and to the same level? So are you saying that each leap and bound is exactly as impressive as the last? Anyway, it’s obvious that if you’ve described something as advancing by leaps and bounds then you’re going to be impressed by it. And what the hell can “leaps and bounds” refer to in vegan baking? Are you talking about new recipes? If so, why not just say it? Along with “the world of vegan baking,” perhaps it’s because it makes it sound more grand if you present the whole thing as a united front of advancing troops, marching proudly into a future dawn of Universal Veganism? Or maybe you want to present it as something akin to scientific progress, when in fact it is – let’s face it – just a bunch of people baking cakes and stuff, without butter and eggs.
So breaking it down, maybe it goes something like this:
“Every time we hear about an impressive advance in the onward march of the People’s Progessive Vegan Baking Front we are impressed, but in particular we are impressed to an unvarying degree from the previous episodes when we were impressed by similarly impressive advances. As it’s impossible for each advance to be equally important or radical, you might expect us to be impressed in proportion to that, but no: we are constantly impressed.”
Before anyone calls me a captious, pedantic and mean-spirited asshole, I’d just like to say that you could easily do the same thing with any number of quotes from my own writings. I’m all for puncturing pomposity, and that includes my own.
[1] http://www.cakespy.com/2008/09/batter-chatter-interview-with-melisser.html