In a message dated 11/17/04 10:03:50 PM, jjmojo@BLAZENET.NET writes:

<< Van is not rusty at all.. super minor seam rust on drivers side that i
have addressed and stopped. >>

From time to time I see statements such as this both here and in other venues
and I have to wonder why such things are said.  These incongruities often
cause me to doubt the discernment if not the integrity of the speaker.  Although
it is not a legitimate word, "rustfree" means NO rust, none, zip, nada.  "Not
rusty at all" means the same.  Mint means MINT.  Cherry means CHERRY.
Pristine means PRISTINE.  When we are cutting deals more and more at greater and
greater distances, these words take on even greater import.

I just drove 500 miles to buy a car which was offered up as rustfree.
Although the seller seemed to be accurate and honest whenever I spoke to him, I
still was compelled to parse his every word to the point that I had him on the
ground with phone in hand checking every seam I had known to rust on the type of
car he was selling.  Fortunately, he was more of a mechanic and less of a
salesmen, so evasiveness was not his forte.  Even after all that I put him
through, I still expected to be greeted with disappointment whenever I would see the
car.  Well, hallelujah!  Tell Diogenes to snuff out his lantern because I
finally found an honest man after viewing cars advertised on the internet over the
past 10 years.

Last year at this time I bought another car at distance.  The experience was
not as uneventful as my recent one, but it was salvageable.  The car was 140
miles from me and it was succinctly offered up as "pristine".  In speaking with
the seller, I detected an accent so I kept hammering him on the word
"pristine" until I was sure he appreciated its meaning and also appreciated the fact
that I was about to travel nearly 300 miles on the weight of that one word.  As
it turned out, the car was very, very nice, but not pristine.  As it also
turned out, the seller was an Argentinean with a Ph.D. in poli sci from Columbia
so whenever I handed him a sheet of paper with the definition of "pristine"
printed on it (P to the sixth power - Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor
Performance), this man of letters was most accepting of my offer.

George