I almost feel like a lawyer as I head into this mostly off-topic post since I have to begin with the question: How do you define clean?
Stainless steel appliances have become more popular than yawns during a major league baseball game, and since people seldom admit to the fact that they want to be part of the latest trend, the most popular reason given for wanting stainless steel appliances seems to be that they are “easy to clean.”
If by easy to clean you mean either “unlikely to stain” or “easy to wipe away grease and other spills from,” then stainless steel appliances certainly meet that definition–although I have never had any serious cleaning issues, I mean, problems with my standard appliances. When I lived in an apartment with an old-fashioned porcelain white sink, I had problems with staining. Normal appliances, meaning those made within the last 30 years, are easy to clean and maintain.
If by easy to clean you mean “free of annoying fingerprints,” then stainless steel appliances are impossible to keep clean–much harder to keep clean than the standard appliances. We have a large stainless steel refrigerator at work, and it has more fingerprints than the entire fingerpainting wing of the Museum of Kindergarten Art.
The point is not that we shouldn’t want to have stainless steel appliances in our kitchens but that we should be honest about the reason for wanting them. It’s not about cleanliness. It might be because we want what’s trendy, or we like the way they look. Perhaps it’s because we want to be able to use the finger printing dust from our detective kit. Those are perfectly fine reasons. We should just be honest about it.
–Paul
Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever
Everything Language and Grammar 