If You Can't Beat 'Em...

How did I let this this slip past me?

I recently went to a White Castle for the first time in years. While there I couldn't help but notice that their marketing department is now boldly and proudly calling their burgers "Sliders."

The general public has been calling them that for decades now of course. I always assumed it was a derogatory expression rather than a term of endearment, based on the way their greasy little burgers slide down right your throat. Or if you want to get really graphic, due to the way they tend to slide right through you and out the other side.

There's some dispute as to exactly when the term originated. Some claim the've been called Sliders since the restaurant first opened. That may or not be true, but using the term in advertising is most definitely something recent.

I wonder if the head of the White Castle marketing department finally just threw up his hands in resigned defeat, gave in and said, "Screw it! Everybody in the country calls 'em sliders, I'm doing it too." Maybe he thought by deliberately and enthusiastically embracing the word it would diffuse any negative connotations in might have in the public consciousness. Much the same way the homosexual community embraced the term "queer."

Still, it would not have occurred to me to use "greasy incontinence" as a selling point in food advertising.