Leave no beer drinker behind

I ws copyediting the warning label on a bottle of beer the other day (that’s what journalists do when they are bored), and it occurred to me that if we are going to have warning labels on beer, we need better ones. I don’t think we need warning labels at all. They aren’t proven to be effective . They really just waste space that would be better used for random trivia questions, information about that particular brew, or pictures of muscle cars. But the government disagrees. So we have ineffective labels that need copyediting. The current label reads in part: “Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery and may cause health problems.” Of course, it should read, “drive a car or operate other machinery….” Cars are, as all but beer-label writers know, machines. But more importantly, one has to be at least 21 years old to buy an alcoholic beverage, but one does not have to be...