In his Tuesday blog, Steve Burns posed an interesting question - what do we call classical music? As I was reading it, I was really hoping that it would die.

Why? Because I like to drink.

If you've spent even a little time buying or reading about wine, you know that Champagne is a region in France. And only sparkling wine made in Champagne can properly be called champagne. If the bubbly is made in California, Spain, or anyplace else, isn't really "champagne," it's sparkling wine.

I know that at least one reason for this was that producers in Champagne didn't want everybody ripping off their name. I get that. But now we've lost a perfectly good generic term. If you're at a restaurant and ask for a couple glasses of champagne, a waiter might decide to educate you and explain that they don't have "champagne" by the glass, but they serve an excellent spakling wine from blah, blah, blah by the glass.

When this happens I always think "Ah shit! Now he's pegged me as a hick and will want to help me with every word bigger than "gravy".

I like generic terms. I like to ask where the kleenex is rather than asking where the facial tissue is.

I don't think we need another word for it. The only thing I don't like about "classical music" is that by saying you like it, people pretty much assume that you must not like anything else.

Now THAT is a problem.