Today's word from Diary: zesty, tangy

1/30/2008
It snowed a lot yesterday, again. When we went out to our car we found an unbelievable amount of snow packed on top of the car. My husband said, "It's like six inches. I've never shoveled off my car before." We had to spend time clearing the snow off the car and making a path through the snow to get the car out of the driveway. We finally managed to get out of the snow and drove to Denny's. Denny's is a fast food restaurant open 24/7. We go there frequently when we have some work to do until late night. I ordered top sirloin steak with a side of cinnamon apples and onion rings. I have my own way of eating onion rings. I remove the crust off the onion rings, and just eat the onions inside. So even after I finish eating, it looks like I still have something left because of the piled-up crusts. Servers often ask me if I need a box, even though I actually have nothing to take home.

After the dinner, I decided to get some dessert. While I was looking at the menu, I encountered two unfamiliar words, zesty and tangy. "Zesty nachos" and "mozzarella cheese sticks … with a side of our tangy marinara sauce". I said to my husband "I don't know these words, zesty and tangy." He answered, "They are just marketing terms. Usually only marketers and advertisers use them. They just want to emphasize that their products are good." After I got home, I searched for the words in online dictionaries. Zesty means "sharp and pleasantly stimulating to the mind or senses (bland pasta that needs a zesty sauce)" [Merriam Webster Dictionary]; tangy means "having a sour, acidic or citrus taste" [Allwords.com]. Despite those fancy words, neither nachos nor cheese sticks were appealing to me. I just got a slice of cheese cake with strawberries.