Date:  Tue, 28 Mar 1995 09:41:09 EST

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: ADS-L: Help with "smores" and "salad shooter"?



A s'more is a cookie prepared by roasting a marshmallow over a fire, then

placing the warm squishy result atop a graham cracker along with an appropriate

size of Hershey's chocolate bar segment (not having been a girl scout, I can't

testify reliably as to whether the original version has the chocolate on top of

the marshmallow or between marshmallow and cracker). Then one eats it. One

enjoys it so much that afterward one calls out "S'more". Or if one is more

polite, perhaps "s'more, please". Whence, of course, the name. (I imagine the

unapostrophized spelling indicates lexicalization and/or loss of transparency.

Transparency in the semantic sense, of course, not the physical.) The result

is something like a squishy Mallomar (tm). Anymore these delights are probably

made in the microwave.

  Salad Shooter (tm) is a product regularly advertised on TV commercials. It

appears to be a device into which you shove veggies and out of which emerges a

salad, or at least salad-shaped and salad-sized bits of veggies. I've never

seen one off the screen, so I can't vouch for them personally.

  Can't help you out at all on that particular variety of chicken salad.

Neither of the last two items strikes me as part of the mental lexicon of an

English speaker, although perhaps this could change. S'mores certainly are, at

least for speakers who have been or have known girl scouts or, more generally,

children. I guess we'll have to wait for the S volume of DARE to determine

the geographical range for the item and its hierarchical composition.



          Larry