Thursday, May 7, 2015

Out Of Time

Today I was checking the Best-Before date on my honey mustard, and it said, "BB/MA 2015 JN 17". So I thought, May 2015, that's this month, so it should be fine. But wait, June 17? Which is it? It seems to be saying, " Best Before May 2015 June 17. That doesn't make any sense.

But then it hit me: the "MA" isn't short for "May," it means "Meilleur Avant," French for, "Best Before." Hence the slash between BB and MA.

That's great, but now I'm paranoid about how many times I've misinterpreted these dates in the past. I know I checked the expiry on something recently and it was close but still okay. Maybe it actually said Meilleur Avant Novembre.

Shouldn't this be one of those things every Canadian must know? I can ask where the bathroom is in both official languages, but this seems more important. We need public service announcements about this. I'm sure the government would agree to it because they can phrase it as one of their pseudo campaign ads: "Your taxes are protecting you from expired bilingual mayonnaise."

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