Plato’s Mouthwash

Like I didn’t have enough problems already, now I’m convinced that my mouthwash is conspiring[1] to provide me with less than adequate dental hygiene. How do I know? The evidence is hiding in plain sight:

The Most Advanced & Complete Mouthwash

Let’s parse this bitch:

1. Most modifies both “advanced” and “complete” as indicated by the ampersand and the positioning of the words on the label.
2. Most Advanced indicates that this is the best mouthwash produced.
3. Most Complete is a phrase of a complexity that necessitates a sub-list:
   1. Knowing what is most complete requires knowing what would define a complete mouthwash, the Platonic Mouthwash[2], if you will[3].
   2. Most complete implies that the mouthwash is not complete (if so it would just be complete), but just closer to the Platonic Mouthwash than others.
   3. Most complete indicates that a complete mouthwash is not available for ready money.

This analysis clearly shows that Big Mouthwash knows the recipe for the Platonic Mouthwash, but is not providing it to us, for some reason[1]. I feel betrayed. Minty fresh; but betrayed.

Or, it could all be meaningless marketsperanto devoid of any other meaning than “BUY ME!”, which I did. God, I feel worse about myself now than when I made that self-immolation joke.

NOTES

1. As with all good conspiracies, the potential benefit to the mouthwash industry is convoluted and initially non-intuitive; but I think it goes a little something like this:
2. This is a ham-handed allusion to Plato’s Republic, which proposes an deadly dull societal structure.
3. You will. Trust me.