"spa" = 'neighborhood grocery store', aka 'convenience store'?

[Amy West]

On 3/2/11 12:03 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> Date:    Tue, 1 Mar 2011 10:16:25 -0500
> From:    "Joel S. Berson"<Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Re: "spa" = 'neighborhood grocery store', aka 'convenience store'?
>
> At 3/1/2011 09:27 AM, Barbara Need wrote:
>> >I lived in MA in the 1970s, but I don't remember ever seeing  a
>> >grocery store with_spa_  in its name. I was north of Boston. Is this
>> >more localized than has been suggested?
> I wonder whether "spa" has diminished in usage since perhaps the 1950s-1960s.

Oh, I think definitely.

I think it's not just a matter of ditching a regionalism, a la "tonic"
for "soda," but I think the semantic confusion with other spas, as they
become more common, encourages opting for the less ambiguous label.

--
---Amy West

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