Shopping

Supermarkets are not just for shopping- they are also teachers of history and English! In addition, supermarkets have items in them that have a connection with great singers such as Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong and a well-known surname.

In my culture and in our family, for any seasonal clothing, the name “Macintosh” has been used and stuck for a certain kind of clothing. The bygone term “Put on your mac” means to go for a walk, to go to anywhere you want. For example, if you wanted to go to the supermarket, you would say; “I’m putting on my mac: see you later!”

These lyrics of a well-known song may be familiar to you, with versions by Sinatra and Armstrong:

“Grab your coat and get your hat,
Leave your worries on the doorstep.
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street.”

Yesterday, since there was good weather so I threw on a “mac” and went to the supermarket. I bought everything I needed on the list. Usually I take yellow golden apples, but then I saw some others that I looked good, another variety and decided to take two red ones. I looked up to read the name and the country of the producer and experienced a culture shock when seeing the name ‘Macintosh’ applied to apples.

So, I brought the apples I bought at the supermarket home, sat at my ASUS sonic master computer and eliminated a small part of my knowledge base and looked up the history of the names and spellings of the name ‘Macintosh’.

 This is what I learned through my research. McIntosh is a popular apple variety in North America. By origin, the McIntosh apple is a random seedling found on the estate of John McIntosh in the current municipality of South Dundas in Eastern Ontario in 1796. By the 1910s, the McIntosh had spread widely in Ontario, the northern part of the United States, and in British Columbia. In Russia, this variety is also known under the names "autumn ebony", "autumn superb" and "good autumn”.

I also learned that the name ‘Macintosh’ is found in products with other spellings:

• Mackintosh: a kind of waterproof raincoat
• Mackintosh’s which began as John Mackintosh and Co., later named Rowntree Mackintosh, a company which is now part of Nestle which produces toffee
• Macintosh computer, known as a Mac Book, a brand of personal computers by Apple Inc.

Well, the often quoted proverb spoken by my mother is continuing to be true: “Live and learn.”  I put on my Mac and went to the supermarket, a school in disguise which taught me about a part of Canadian history!