Barbara Wallraff is a writer and editor in Cambridge. She writes The Wordshop on Substack.
The challenge last time was to find “a cooler or at least catchier word for nonalcoholic” (aka NA) beer and, optionally, such a word for nonalcoholic wine.
To Kevin Marzotto, of North Easton, this was no challenge at all. He wrote: “There has been a term in existence for nonalcoholic beer for quite some time. The term is near beer. Sometimes we really don’t need new words.” Bill Falk, of Newton; John Haneffant, of Boston; and Bob Smith, of Roslindale, mentioned near beer too.
Kevin, you’re right about the technical meaning of near beer, though I was skeptical at first because when I was a college student in Ohio, that’s what we called 3.2 beer, which those of us who were underage could legally drink. The 3.2 refers to the beer’s percentage of alcohol by weight (ABW). The now standard measure is alcohol by volume (ABV), and an ABW of 3.2 percent translates to an ABV of about 4 percent. Ironically, nearly all breweries have phased out 3.2 beer, which was regarded as a relic of the early post-Prohibition days, but now many make “light beer,” with an ABV of 4.2 percent.
When I was looking into near beer, I can’t resist telling you, I happened upon the following citation in the Oxford English Dictionary: “Snails prefer non-alcoholic products to real beer. Even the near-beer must be fresh; snails don’t like the stale stuff.” Who knew?
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Don Hunton, of Acton, tried a brute-force method of word coining, making a list of synonyms for fake and another list of beer words and putting them together, resulting in “more than 100 possible combos.” But he had second thoughts: “NA beer is beer. It’s made from the same ingredients and brewed in a similar way. It just doesn’t have alcohol in it. So why don’t we call it what it is: dry beer? Everybody knows what dry January is all about, so dry beer is understandable. And it’s easier to say than NA beer. Now, as for nonalcoholic wine, that’s just a darned shame.”
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Michael J. Bohnen, of Newton, also proposed dry beer — and sobeer, which Sue Zile, of North Kingstown, R.I., came up with too. And Michael suggested grape juice for nonalcoholic wine, as did Leslie Harris, of Hull.
A sizable number of respondents evidently sneer at nonalcoholic beer. Kelly Ash, of Melrose, proposed wannabe-er: “You want a real beer but settle for a wannabe.” Nan Graves, of York, Maine, wrote: “How about beerfree or beerless or maybe just unbeerable?” Rick Woods, of Yarmouth Port, came up with lacklager; Liz Thompson, of Putnam Conn., makebeerlieve; and Sydney Fadner, of Watertown, beereft.
I admire Paula Sable, of Haverhill, for her nonjudgmental coinages unbeer and altbier. And James L. Sherley, of Boston, not only coined a couple of nonjudgmental words but also had a brand of beer to recommend. He wrote: “After reading about Guinness’s new nonalcoholic stout, I went in search of Guinness Zero to try with my next restaurant dinner. It took three restaurant requests before a restaurant was not out of it. It lived up to all the advertised flavor and quality without the alcohol! My thought at the time was beero. But zeer is another suggested wallriff, both being simple portmanteaus.”
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Cyndy Overgaag, of West Springfield, was outright in favor of alcohol-free beverages, even unto designing a logo for them. She wrote: “I thought of GF for ‘gluten-free’ and GMO-free. What we need is an eye-catching logo, like the ‘GMO-free’ butterfly and the simple ‘GF’ on labels, that designates an alcohol-free product at a glance.
“I propose a logo that has a simple design of a bottle on its side that has the word ALKfree inside. Rather like a ship in a bottle. The bottle outlines are green, and the lettering is blue or purple — with perhaps two shades of blue or purple, one for the capital letters and one for the italic letters.
“This symbol could be universally recognized for beer, wine, and other ALKfree offerings.”
Cyndy, I’m impressed! I hereby award you bragging rights for your word and associated logo. Well done!
Now Louise Bellucci, of Brimfield, wants to know: “What do you call something that was not engineered well? For example, hot dogs come in packs of eight but the buns come in packages of six or 12. They make fitted sheets just a skootch shy of being able to stay on the mattress. My electrician father-in-law called these things 5 watt-ers because they aren’t too bright. What suggestions do your readers have?”
Send your ideas for Louise’s word to me at Barbara.Wallraff@globe.com by noon on Friday, April 4, and kindly tell me where you live. Responses may be edited. And please keep in mind that meanings in search of words are always welcome.
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