Buggered if I know…

My subject today, gentle reader, is shampoo.

When I was a kid, we used to go to Germany to visit relatives every summer. This brought me into contact with the German language from an early age. Maybe it was that which engendered my interest in the way words are used, or maybe I inherited it from my mother who is still, at age 83, fascinated by words. For instance, when she’s working her way through the morning’s crossword puzzle, she often reaches for the dictionary to check an etymology or to puzzle over a definition which seems inappropriate.

However, I digress, so let’s head back to my youth.

In those days I recall shampoo being labelled variously as ‘for dry hair’, ‘for greasy hair’, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that, you may say to yourself, and for years, indeed, I was content with this type of labelling. However, during one of our visits to Germany I actually bought some ‘native’ shampoo. It was labelled ‘gegen fettige Haare’, as I recall, and would in this country have been labelled ‘for greasy hair’. The German phrase however means ‘against greasy hair’. So there was quite a difference and one which amused me from then on: the simple logic was that if I bought shampoo ‘for greasy hair’ that’s what I would get!

Musing on this subject the other morning under the shower, I picked up the bottle of shampoo to check what it said these days.

[Manufacturers of hair products please note: I now buy whatever is cheap, rather than based on whatever you put on the outside of the bottle. Am I unique? Buggered if I know...]

The shampoo had a long tale to tell on the front, but eventually I discovered that it was ‘for normal hair’. OK, I want normal, rather than abnormal, hair so that’s fine.

There was also quite a lot of prose on the back of the bottle. The following particularly caught my eye:

Do you have: short or normal hair?

But you want: Resilient, healthy looking hair that shines?

‘Hmm,’ I mused. ‘Yes, I have short and normal hair. So this is obviously the right shampoo for me.’

I was happy for a moment.

But then I started to ponder some more: ‘Actually, I’m quite happy to have short and normal hair, so what’s all this “but” business. Is resiliant, etc. hair “that shines” some kind of alternative?’

And another thing: was I going to find my hair had grown significantly longer as a result of using this shampoo?

And just hold on one little moment! What’s all this ‘or’ stuff? Since when has short been abnormal, and hence in some unspecified way ‘bad’?

Buggered if I know.