Beware the Regulator Orcs: First World Problem, California's "Big Coffee Kerfuffle"...

Linked-in posted this news brief today, guaranteed to set the late-night writers abuzz…

“Coffee makers in California will need to flag a cup’s carcinogenic content, based on a Los Angeles Superior Court ruling.  Acrylamide, a known carcinogen produced when beans are roasted, “has been at the heart of an eight-year legal struggle between a tiny nonprofit group and Big Coffee,” CNBC says. (Coffee companies) argue that the substance, which they assert hasn’t been shown definitively to cause cancer, cannot be removed from their product without ruining the flavor. The court ruling may be appealed or — according to the state law under which the case was brought — the judge can set penalties of up to $2,500 per person exposed each day over eight years."

All those people; all those cups, all branded with the new Scarlet Letter "A" for Acrylamide...

Really?   Here’s what I ri-posted:

Warning -- reading labels in California may be hazardous to your health.  At the very least to your brain's common-sense receptors. 

OK, you late night comics -- the Three Jimmys & Stephen Colbert -- here's some low-hanging fruit:  Regulator Orcs Run Amok in the Land of Kaiser Moonbeam...

This whole mess begs the question: does our American Slang Dictionary now need a new noun for this new First World Flap, for the bitter legal grounds of "The Big Coffee Kerfuffle?"  

Maybe something like "acryla-mony?"  (pronounced "Uh-KRILL-uh-Moan-ee."


                                                                                   © Copyright John Hessburg & The Diction Aerie.