Artisan? No! Artesian? Yes!

Something ain't right, and it's high time it be fixed. Yesterday I heard a spot on Boston radio advertising the introduction of some drink brewed with artisan water. (I'm sorry but I didn't catch the name of the product.)

Water is a molecule consisting of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Much of planet earth is covered by water, though none of it was made by any artisan. (Apologies to those readers enamored with intelligent design.) In fact, not much of what we now credit to the work of so-called artisans is at all made by these crafty folks.

For example, for the past several years the term artisan has increasingly referred to the skill put into baking a loaf of bread without the use of a commercial conveyer belt. (Though the term artisan is now appearing on such loaves, too.) I bake bread on occasion -- I know Jamie Oliver's basic-yet-versatile recipe by heart -- and sometimes (if I'm lucky) the focaccias, pizzas, ciabattas, wheat breads and rolls I've made turn out quite well. But I can assure you that none of the bread I've made (and none of the bread I can recall buying in a bakery) is artisan-crafted. It's bread for heaven's sake!

So what's the deal with so-called artisan water? The proper word that the radio-ad folks and others who misuse artisan seek is artesian, which refers to water collected via a well that has been drilled into an aquifer. And let that settle this for once and all, please.