I was looking for a gift item based on a certain design.

I found a company that offered "handmade" custom items. Turns out that they are made of plastic on a 3D printer.

Now, I realize that Etsy has pushed for "handmade" to include items made by several people, or even assembled by one person and made by another, but ...

any standard definition of "handmade" means "not by machine." Being "individualized" or "custom" does not make something "handmade"

Perhaps the trend to mangle our language to fit needs is also handmade. Sigh!

Why would you not assume something that said handmade is not made by machine? Seems perfectly reasonable. It has a specific meaning to me as well.

Over here in the UK we have what is called Trading Standards that deal with false advertising etcetera. The law on it all is very complex. A neighbour of our was a top Trading Standards officer who now works privately correcting adds for companies all day long. Sometimes it is only a word he changes to make it legal, say from hand made to hand-built.

I don't understand your response at all. I try not to assume anything.

I'm not sure that there can be a definition of "handmade" that is going to suit everyone. You're going to be either too narrow or too wide for some. Is a bowl produced on an electric potter's wheel handmade? On the other hand, how about if the bowl is produced in a factory where 30,000 other bowls a day are being made by laborers? (See, for example, "handmade carpets.")

Granted that 3-D printers would seem to push past the grey area in most everybody's definition. But the word "handmade" is like the term "all-natural." It means essentially whatever anybody wants it to mean, and hence is meaningless.

Chris Wasshuber, over at Lybrary.com,
has been publishing some of these,...'irks'.

My favourite was 'sugar free'.

If something has less than 0.5 grams of sugar, per serving;
it can be called: Suger free.

Tic Tacs, conviniently 0.49 grams,..per,
call themselves,...'Sugar free'(!).
When in reality,..
they are 99.7% Sugar. 🙃

hmmmm.

öK Dökey.
gallagher

Everything fresh, local and handmade is defined as inferior.

I was agreeing. When something says handmade you assume it is hand made. If you didn't make row assumption there wouldn't be anything to be irked about now would there?

It is perfectly reasonable to expect such a thing.

I type with my "hands".

And a beautiful hand-crafted post it is.