handcrafted

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED ignores "handcrafted" in the mesmeric commercial sense of "carefully
made or prepared according to industrial standards."  Celestial Seasonings,
e.g., claims that its tea blends are "handcrafted."

I suppose in the case of CS, it could mean that somewhere, at some time, a
"blendmaster" (sic) mixed a little of this and a little of that by hand till
he liked the taste.  Cool.  However, the usual connotation of "handcrafted"
is that the very product you're holding was made by hand or with the
personal attention of a living human to every detail.  Nowadays this is
rarely the case.

By "nowadays," I mean since the introduction of "handcrafted" to describe
otherwise routinely manufactured items.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org