pejoration of "stuff?"

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:19 PM -0700 5/23/07, Douglas Kenter wrote:
>My friend Rowyn McDonald and I were sitting in a cafe yesterday when we saw
>the a bag of Kettle Chips (potato chips) that said "No Stuff" on the
>package, clearly meant as an advertisement.  Sure enough, when we looked at
>the back, there was a little bit of explanation, something to the effect of
>"No Stuff: No Trans Fats, No Artificial Flavors, Etc."
>
>If this pejoration is actually happening, it adds yet another layer to the
>already-meaning-rich "stuff."
>
Maybe unadorned stuff is pejorating, but it hasn't gone too far yet.
Snapple is still, we are told, "made from the best stuff on earth".
The top two such stuffs appear to be water and high fructose corn
syrup.  Or actually, maybe not--they never say it's made from *only*
the best stuff on earth, so maybe they're just referring to the water.

LH

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