OPINION: When ‘boneless’ does not mean boneless

When Wings on Brookwood advertises their boneless wings, any sensible person would think that these wings are… well, without bones.  After all, that’s what “boneless” means—"without bones.”  This kind of thinking is common sense.  But the recent story from a chicken restaurant in Hamilton, Ohio is yet another example that common sense is not so common these days.

Little did Michael Berkheimer realize it, but he should have heeded Ronald Reagan’s call to “Trust but verify” when he started eating his boneless chicken wings with parmesan garlic sauce.  He trusted that the boneless wings did not have bones and in fact ended up swallowing a 1 3/8 inch bone which lodged in his esophagus leading to a bacterial infection in his thoracic cavity which caused lingering medical problems, including difficulty breathing.

Berkheimer ended up suing the restaurant, claiming that the restaurant’s menu did not have a warning that its boneless wings could actually have bones.  His case made it all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court which issued a 4-3 ruling that boneless refers to a cooking “style” and not to the wings themselves and that Berkheimer should have been on guard against bones since everybody knows that chickens have bones.

So, the next time I eat a Filet-O-Fish sandwich at McDonald’s, should I eat it with caution because fish have bones too, or should I trust that that the meat in the bun is a filet?

I am not an attorney and cannot speak to the legal nature of the case.  However, this does not seem to be an issue of negligence and legality but of common sense and stupidity.  I find myself resonating with the dissenting judges of Ohio’s Supreme Court who said “The question must be asked:  Does anyone really believe that the parents in this country who feed their young children boneless wings or chicken tenders or chicken nuggets or chicken fingers expect bones to be in the chicken?  Of course they don’t.  When they read the word ‘boneless,’ they think that it means ‘without bones,’ as do all sensible people.”

We should always be careful with our words.  When a society’s words do not have objective meanings, the society is indeed growing increasingly careless.  When words haphazardly are assigned meanings by cultural populists and black-robed justices, we are building our houses on sand. 

I did a double take when I saw the headlines about this story.  The saying is indeed correct —Truth is stranger than fiction.    On a larger scale, we have some who are redefining words like “rights,” and “freedom,” and “justice,” and “healthcare.”  Of course, all this shouldn’t surprise us when we live in a country where we have a Supreme Court Justice who can’t even define what a woman is.

The Olympics recently closed in Paris.  Our family especially enjoyed watching the gymnastic events.   Obviously, the court system in Ohio has been performing some of their own linguistic gymnastics.

Language is an incredible gift that each of us has been given.  Words are to correspond to objective reality—not to our changing desires.  We are not to assign meaning to words according to our preferences.  Instead, we are to use words as they were intended—correctly, accurately, precisely.  When we use words rightly, we speak well.  When we speak well, we live well.  In addition, when we speak well, we won’t find bones in our boneless chicken wings.

Todd E. Brady serves as Staff Chaplain and Advanced Funeral Planner at Arrington Funeral Directors.  He and his wife, Amy have five sons.  You may write to him at tbrady@afgemail.net.