Our local grocery store is advertising ‘semi-boneless beef rib roast’.
How can it be semi-boneless? I mean, there’s with bone and without, right? Is there a state in between that I don’t know about?
Perhaps they started to take the bone out, and then realized that if they did that, it would be boneless and they would have to charge more. So they stopped halfway through, and left it semi-boneless. There would be less effort required to de-bone.
And here’s an idea for the semi-boneless crowd: When you take the bone out halfway, leave it sticking out so that it can be a handle. Then you can raise the price a bit on the meat, because it’s semi-boneless with a handle. 
Seriously–semi-boneless doesn’t make sense. It’s got a bone. It’s boned.
it’s a nice way of saying genetically altered to bland but easy to ship. One of the side benefits of this developement is that the animal while alive secretes a chemical that hampers the metabilization of ionised calcium. This results in week bones in some children and the elderly. So, as you see the phrase Semi-boneless isn’t refferencing the meat you bought. It’s a tricky advertising ploy. A simple act of misdirection. Ah the joys of modern advertizing.
Caleb, you are a fount of random information. That’s a compliment.