The waitperson at Souper Salad in Santa Fe, desirous of a tip, a bit of a rarity at a buffet, took our used plates, cleared the table and said, “If you need anything, my name is Kaitlyn.”
    The six of us got her drift, and we actually invoked her name a couple of times for soft drink refills, but before we did, a couple of us almost asked the inevitable question: “If we don’t need anything, does that mean your name is something else, like ‘Hortense’ or ‘Brunhilda’?”
    But that question brings up another, which smokers of the sixties era may recall: “What do you want, good grammar or good taste?”

    That question was part of a Winston cigarette commercial, back in the days when cigarette advertising was permitted on radio and television.
    Apparently, some Madison Avenue advertising executive came up with a slogan which would augment the rhyme of “good” and “should.” That’s probably how the slogan came about: “Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should.”
    It wasn’t long before language purists, their eyeglasses suspended over the tips of their noses, rebelled with, “That’s ungrammatical. ‘Like’ is a preposition, the last part of the sentence is a dependent clause, and therefore, the proper diction should be ‘”as” a cigarette should.'”
    I can identify with the purists, as a card-carrying member of Sister Magnus Gravitas’s grammar class at Immaculate Conception School, in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Yet, I believe the “as-like” distinction is no big deal, and aside from that, confusing. How many people opt for “like I said . . .” over “as I said . . . “? Somehow, “like I said” seems more natural.
    Back on Madison Avenue, the advertising company let the “like a cigarette should” boo-boo slide, unnoticed, until some of my colleagues complained. So Winston’s reaction is not to change “like” to “as” and thus appear pedantic. Instead, they kept “like” and countered with, “What do you want, good grammar or good taste?” That became an effective advertising technique.
    Many of us never realized good grammar and good taste were mutually exclusive. Why can’t we have both? Would changing “like” to “as” somehow corrupt the ingredients that constitute cigarettes, possibly even making them dangerous?
    Can’t, then, Winston really taste good and still follow the prepositional rule that Sister Gravitas pounded into us?
    But let’s get back to the restaurant, lest readers surmise that I’m encouraging smoking, which I gave up more than 20 years and 40 pounds ago.
    The Souper Salad exchange is probably more common than people realize. It’s a conditional-non-conditional statement, based on “if.” But the “if” doesn’t really change things. A boss once told a slew of us, “If you don’t like it here, there’s the door.” We all got his drift.
    This elliptical expression really means, “If you don’t like it here, you can leave. There’s the door.”
    Of course, several of us may have been tempted to ask the boss, “Let’s see if we have this straight, boss. If we do like it here, there’s no door, or the door is somewhere else, just not there?”
    And people tell parents who are concerned about poor quality television, “If you don’t like the programming, there’s always the remote.” So if I actually dig the processed electronic fertilizer that comes in the form of “Sex and the City,” “Blow out,” “Sweet Sixteen” and “Real World,” the remote control simply vanishes.
    Or you hear the lovelorn saying, “If you still want me, I’m in the phone book.” The corollary to that is, “If you don’t care for me, my name mysteriously vanishes from the Qwest pages.”
    All of these expressions obviously imply a missing step. Highlands University English professor Gina Briefs-Elgin reminded me that these are really non-sequiturs, a Latin term that translates to “It does not follow.” It’s a conclusion that’s not justified by what comes before.
    The waitperson’s statement should read, fully, “If you need anything, just ask me. My name is Kaitlyn,” or, “If you need anything, just ask for Kaitlyn.” Mentally, we fill in the blanks.
    We also hear the “correct” version of the conditional statement in expressions like, “If there’s a hurricane, then I’m prepared.” And if there isn’t one, well, the speaker is still prepared.
    Surprisingly, few people ever really question the intent of these conditional statements which lack certain elements.
    But no more of that. So if you’ll excuse me, I have a deadline to meet.
    By the way, Kaitlyn-Hortense-Brunhilda did not get hassled for her non-sequitur and even received a tip. She provided not-so-good grammar, but the food tasted good.