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28 December 2004
odd stories make for odd headlines
While visiting with relatives I found myself reading with some curiosity a headline in the world section of the Sunday edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "coffee bean from animal pooh draws loads of cash." What? The piece (originating with the AP) is here, and includes a great shot of a civet ("a nocturnal, fruit-eating cousin of the mongoose that roams tropical forests, climb[ing] a coffee treat to eat ripe [coffee] cherries at a farm in Indang, Philippines." (A thumbnail is at right.) When looking up the subject via Google I came across a USA Today headline from January 2004: "Civet coffee: good to the last dropping." Can these editors not help themselves?
My curiousity was two-fold: Is this for real? (The answer is yes; read the article.) Why are headline editors using "pooh"? (Hard to say; see below.)
Interestingly, "pooh" is not listed in the American Heritage dictionary as a synonym for excrement, and wasn't the headline used in all outlets that carried the AP story. For example, the copy of the article linked above was headlined "Filipinos seek to boost production of coffee beans retrieved from animal droppings." T and I discussed this on the drive from Vegas to L.A. yesterday: When we both think of "pooh" we think of Pooh, as in Winnie the Pooh. The AH lists pooh (interjection: "used to express disdain"); Pooh-bah or pooh-bah (from The Mikado, "a pompous ineffectual official"); pooh-pooh ("to express contempt for"). Nothing else under "pooh," nothing under "poo," and three listings under "poop" but without reference to excrement: "a superstructure at the stern of a ship," "to become...fatigued," and "inside information."
Dictionary.com comes to the rescue, but under "poop," not "pooh." And even there it's the fifth definition. (Odd, though, that dictionary.com gets this information from the fourth edition of the American Heritage dictionary, which is what I was looking at in print form without success. Hmm...)
Even if civet coffee "has a chocolatey aroma" and a "bold and nutty" taste and is "full-bodied with medium acidity and no bitter aftertaste," I'm going to pass on this new sensation. Putting aside the poop connection, I've been caffeine free since 17 October, and need to stay that way for a while longer.