The dressing room was always sweltering by 3:15, packed with little girls shimmying into their Danskins and older ones adjusting chignons in front of a set of mirrors bordered by those cartoony showbiz light bulbs.

I was jammed into a corner, struggling to straighten the toe line of my tights while simultaneously watching the door. When the first girls started slithering out I knew I needed to hustle—missing the warm-up was grounds for a humiliating lecture from Mrs. Williams, a woman so terrifying I still cower at the thought of her.

“Hey Jessica,” called a voice from the opposite corner. I looked up, only to find that voice belonged to Joy Grube. Perched on the marbled makeup counter, the ribbons of her toe shoes winding winningly around her slim ankles, Joy was staring directly at me. I flung an arm into my backpack and pretended to search for my own ribbonless ballet shoes though I knew they were at the bottom, flattened, as usual, by the red Garfield lunchbox with the wonky latch. How did she even know my name? I wondered, sticking my head into the bag for a few extra seconds of stall time. I’d been dancing in the same room with Joy Grube—who was four grades ahead of me—since I was in Kindergarten, and there had never been an indication she knew I existed.

“Jessica,” Joy repeated, and as I removed my head from my bag I saw an evil smile flashing across her pretty thin mouth, dashing my hopes that she just needed a bobby pin or something. “Did you know your sister was going with Mike Pype?”

Some context: Joy was in eighth grade, and not only queen of the ballet school, but also royally popular at the school itself, a K through 12 institution that housed this very dance academy where we spent endless afternoons plie-ing and grand plie-ing. I was in fourth. My older sister, Julia, was just one year below Joy, and popular. But she wasn’t Joy Grube popular, if you know what I mean. And Mike Pype was a boy in my sister’s class, someone I’d known forever, a family friend. Mike Pype was as familiar as field trip permission slips and woolly leg warmers. Where were he and Julia going?

And then, stupidly, I asked. And as soon as the words “Going where?” came stammering out of me, that crowded dressing room was filled with the evil laughter of three dozen bitchy little ballerinas, all of whom apparently understood that “going with” was the common vernacular for dating.

Wordlessly, Joy popped off the counter and sashayed out the dressing room door, first, as usual, to begin her warm-ups at the barre.

Why have I told you this ancient story? It’s because, much as we all like to mutter platitudes about no stupid questions, moments of linguistic ignorance tend to stick with us, and not in the winning way of a faithful dog. They tend to stick with us in the way an unfortunate fish dish lingers on the palate and curdles in the stomach. We think of them during bouts of sleeplessness, adding a nice little element of cringe to the stress and discomfort of insomnia. They’re not a huge deal, for sure, but they’re not exactly welcome either. Thus and therefore, I thought we could talk about one of the most often mispronounced words in the world of alcohol: meritage.

A designation founded by winemakers in California, meritage refers to wines made in the Bordeaux style but not in the Bordeaux region. There are certain stipulations every meritage wine must meet. For instance, the wine labeled meritage must be the most expensive one of that style and production that a winery sells. A red Meritage blend must have at least two of these grape varietals: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cab franc, petit verdot, malbec, st. macaire, gros verdot and carmenere. The winemaker can’t include more than 90 percent of one grape in the blend. A white meritage must be a blend of at least two of these grapes: sauv blanc, semillon, and muscadelle, and, again, no grape can account for more than 90 percent of the total fruit.

If you find you like meritage wines—the one by Three Rivers in Walla Walla is a fan favorite—by all means ask for them at McCarthy and Schiering and Wine World Warehouse and wherever else you buy wine.

But when you do, pronounce “meritage” so that it rhymes with “heritage.” Because in fact, meritage is a made-up word combining the two real words “merit” and “heritage.” It is not—as it so confoundedly seems—a French word. Many people pronounce it as if it were, however. The better the French accent, the more exaggerated the error.

It’s only a word, of course. There are more important things. Then again, the fewer Joy Grube moments in life, the better. Right?

Happy Friday.