Poll clarification: Fun size vs. miniature

Monday, April 3, 2006 » food image poll

As you may have noticed, the poll is back after its long absence. For a while I was having a hard time coming up with undecided issues that are important to me, but then I remembered this ages-old rivaly.

William brought to my attention, though, that there might be some confusion over which size candy bar is actually the "fun size." The fun size one is the small, rectangular bar that people have handed out at Halloween pretty much as long as I can remember. While there are those who complain that "fun size" might be a misnomer because there are larger breeds of candy bar out there, it's definitely preferable over the relatively recent alternative: the miniature. Miniatures are the fun size candy bar's tiny, square descendant. If you ever gave these out on Halloween instead of the fun size ones, the kids in your neighborhood probably hate you. Please, at the supermarket this Halloween, think of the children. Buy the fun size.

Now, a (not quite to scale) visual aid:

Fun size:

Miniature:

Anyway, this to prevent confusion in situations where you might know you prefer, say, fun size Snickers over fun size Milky Way, but if miniature is the only size available, maybe you'd rather go with a Milky Way because the Snickers miniature only has like one peanut in it. Or maybe you'd like the highest ratio of nougat to other ingredients possible, in which 3 Musketeers trumps all and makes the fun size/miniature thing sort of irrelevant. In any case, I hope we've all learned something here.

I've learned that I have a disturbing amount to say on differentiating candy bar sizes.