Actually, this construction is rather endearing
What happens when your backspace key is broken and you already have “is sold by the” typed up.
Photo by roger jones @ Flickr
Wordsploded by Mark
September 13th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Showcasing the best of the worst of the wide world of words
What happens when your backspace key is broken and you already have “is sold by the” typed up.
Photo by roger jones @ Flickr
Wordsploded by Mark
September 13th, 2008 at 11:30 am
(10 votes, average: 4.10 out of 5)
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OK, I have to defend this one. This is a sort of retail shorthand to cut down on saying “it’s sold by the individual piece”. Eaches are retail units. When I did merchandise presentation layouts, products were described as being sold by the case, ip (short for inner pack, a smaller box unit sent in a case pack), or each. If you asked someone in the merchandising department how something was sold, they might very well say “it’s sold by the each”.
Don’t kill the messenger. It’s not any worse than saying you’re going to Google something…
Lisa
13 Sep 08 at 9:27 pm
Thanks for the retail jargon background! It still sounds very amusing and unnatural to me. And my wife points out: they could have said “by the head.” And “individually” is only one more character than “by the each.”
Mark
13 Sep 08 at 11:46 pm
As someone who worked a few summers in a warehouse for a school supply company, I will confirm Lisa’s comment that an “each” is a retail unit. Most of the time a packing list called for an individual item, it would be an “each”, which was usually abbreviated as “EA” as opposed to a pack (PK), a case (CS), a box (BX), etc.
In fact, you will notice that on the price label, there is an EA, which refers to the unit at which the cauliflower is sold. So, apparently a head of cauliflower is $2.99
Meng Bomin
13 Sep 08 at 11:56 pm
The first commenter is correct. Each is the base unit in most inventory systems. At my place of employment we use the same format; eaches, inner packs, cases, and pallets. This sign makes perfect sense to me, but the general population might have trouble with it or think it is grammatically incorrect.
Joey
14 Sep 08 at 12:44 am
Could EACH be an acronym?
Onkel Thorsen
14 Sep 08 at 3:36 am
A gas station nearby also sells fried chicken out of its attached convenience store. A handwritten sign over the pumps advertises:
“Special: 2 wings, 2 logs, $3.99″
Volly
14 Sep 08 at 8:45 am
I’m also backing up Lisa. “By the each” is a standard grocery term from grower to wholesaler to retailer. Order forms indicate ‘sold by’ as EA or LB.
jane
14 Sep 08 at 2:27 pm
While all of that retail jargon is fascinating–and excuse me if you find this unnecessarily snarky–it’s a great example of the completely unnecessary “plasticization” of language. We have words for these things; we don’t have to make them up, or re-label words to have new meanings. Every business seems to take great pains to do this these days, as if they all think they’re the Cheshire bloody Cat.
The sign would have been perfectly understandable had the maker simply typed “head” or “bunch” to fill in the unit. “Each” is an adjective, not a noun, regardless of what your field might want it to be.
Jack
14 Sep 08 at 3:12 pm
Like I said, don’t shoot the messenger. Googled anything today?
Lisa
14 Sep 08 at 7:35 pm
I was going to say, I’ve seen this at my own local market and it makes me giggle every time. It’s ridiculous, but apparently, accepted.
Dawn @ Coming to a Nursery Near You
14 Sep 08 at 8:19 pm
Naw, but I used a Q-Tip, a Kleenex, and a Band-Aid. Hey, I’m not morally opposed to neologisms or anything; I just hate to see perfectly good words get awkward new meanings attached to them for no particularly good reason.
Jack
14 Sep 08 at 8:33 pm