Arechavaleta's Sandbox

Item #: SCP-XXXX

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: Due to its incorporeal nature, no conduct for the containment of SCP-XXXX has been deemed effective at time of writing. Local Foundation assets stationed within the city of São Miguel do Gostoso have been instructed to continuously monitor the corporeality stratum within a 500-meter radius of the city's urban perimeter in order to identify and catalogue any significant abnormalities that do not fit the pattern of the ongoing phenomenon.

Three Foundation shell corporations under the cover of proeminent supermarket chains in Northeast Brazil are tasked with purchasing and incinerating any and all alimentary produce originated from São Miguel do Gostoso fitting the following categories:

• Confectionary goods, including but not limited to pastries, candied goods, pastillage and any other confection made primarily of sugar;

• Agricultural produce from local field crops, poultries and orchards;

• Livestock commodities, such as meat, eggs and milk.

All items fitting the aforementioned categories are to be referred to as instances of SCP-X-A. Consumption and storage of any SCP-XXXX-A instance by Foundation personnel is strictly prohibited outside of a controlled environment. All agents involved with the transportation of the objects to the incineration facility will undergo a thorough mandatory inspection prior to entering or leaving the premises.

Description: SCP-XXXX is the designation for an ongoing reality disturbance affecting the city of São Miguel do Gostoso, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. Any products originating from the city's food sector (SCP-XXXX-A), whether agricultural or industrialized, will invariably sustain a significantly higher probability of receiving the subjective classification of gostoso when evaluated by a Portuguese speaker.

The phenomenon itself is not limited to Portuguese speakers. Preliminary testing has shown that, upon consuming instances of SCP-XXXX-A, subjects not familiarized with Portuguese will attempt to describe SCP-XXXX-A's taste positively, although one will not be able to accurately translate the meaning of gostoso to their idiom¹. Bilingual Portuguese speakers are seemingly be able to identify food items from sources other than São Miguel do Gostoso with the subjective classification of gostoso.

Further linguistic assesments have showcased that, though the word gostoso exists in other Western Romance languages², the connotation held by the word within the Portuguese variant spoken in Brazil is exclusive.

Although seemingly not harmful, market research has shown that the unique atributes affecting instances of SCP-XXXX-A will cause a significant increase in gross revenue for São Miguel do Gostoso's food industry. A 20-year projection ellaborated by the Foundation has predicted that, when left unattended, produce originating from the city will rapidly exceed the expected turnover for agricultural and alimentary services similar to those located in São Miguel do Gostoso³.

+ Expand Addendum XXXX-A: Descriptive elements for the meanings of "gostoso" in English

Addendum XXXX-A: Experient Log XXXX-1

In this experiment, four groups of one hundred and twenty-five (125) bilingual Portuguese speakers have been individually asked to freely choose one from a set of food items, objects and pictures that were accompanied by pre-defined adjectives describing them. In all trials but the control group, at least one item received the arbitrary classification of gostoso. All group members were interviewed individually with the same questions in order to set preference patterns for the tests.

Objects	Command	Group Preference
A fresh slice of chocolate cake served on a plate, accompanied by the adjective tasty; A sliced loaf of bread, accompanied by the word gostoso; Strawberry chewing gum, accompanied by the word bitter;	Test subjects were told to pick which item they would like to eat the most.	98 of the 125 members of the group listed chocolate cake as one of their favorite desserts.

Objects	Command	Group Preference
A glass of lime juice, accompanied by the adjective refreshing;	Test subjects were told to pick which item they would like to eat the most.	98 of the 125 members of the group listed chocolate cake as one of their favorite desserts.

Footnotes

1. See Addendum XXXX-1.

2. Spanish, Uruguayan Portuguese and Xalimengo

3. See Addendum XXXX-2.