Friday, August 6, 2010

Annives*, etc. (for Annivers*)

In search of a good gift to bring to a 30th wedding anniversary celebration, I decided to consult one of those lists that tells you what the traditional present should be, based on how many years it's been. One year is paper, five is wood, ten is tin, and so on. I knew that by thirty, the more obvious applications would be out of my price range (plus, I wasn't exactly married to the idea, or to either honoree), but I was still curious what substance three decades of marriage might imply. It turned out to be pearls and, as I'd already been toying with the idea of purchasing a nice selection of tins from our local tea shop, it occurred to me that both "jasmine pearls" and "white tea pearls" might be the perfect affordable offering: deliciously soothing and perfumey, with a wee winking bit of wordplay on the side. Pearl tea is really fun to make too. As you pour hot water over the tiny balled-up leaves, they start to unfurl like little sea monkeys in a floral-scented ocean. Annives* appears ten times in OhioLINK, Annivrs* four times, and Annavers* once. A couple of other variants on today's typo have also been written about here: Aniversary and Anniversay.

(Jasmine pearl tea, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

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