Consumerist has this piece onEnglish Professor: I Was Booted From Starbucks Over Bagel Linguistics… with the brilliant line "Just venti-ing". The prof refused to say that she did not want anything on her bagel:
"I just wanted a multigrain bagel," the woman told The NY Post. "I refused to say 'without butter or cheese.' When you go to Burger King, you don't have to list the six things you don't want... Linguistically, it's stupid, and I'm a stickler for correct English."Linguistically, this isn't so much stupid as irrelevant. But culturally, it's stupid beyond comprehension. And how does this have anything at all to do with 'correct English'? No wonder English departments are in deep trouble if they have professors like this.
It has a funny ending, though: The cops were called.
8 comments:
So this is where an alleged stickler for correct English wants to draw a line in the sand, huh? How sad.
If I ordered a bagel and received one without cream cheese I would be pissed. And the professor's example of burger king is ridiculous. If I went to burger king and ordered a burger, I'd expect it to have everything it typically has on it.
Sad, yeah. I keep trying to laugh about it, but it doesn't quite work.
And Anon, I think you're right: There's a kind of markedness thing going on here: The norm is that a bagel comes with cream cheese and a burger comes with mustard and whatever.
Here's an excerpt from the New York Post article that wasn't included in the Consumerism story:
Rosenthal admitted she had run into trouble before for refusing to employ the chain's stilted lexicon -- balking at ordering a "tall" or a "venti" from the menu or specifying "no whip."
Instead, she insists on making a pest of herself by ordering a "small" or "large" cup of joe.
Shocking is the ease with which one can make headlines by being "one of THOSE people".
I don't see the article saying it was a professor of English, sticklers, methinks, come from all backgrounds.
It's in the headline ...
I think is just your standard customer/service person linguistic standard. Anytime you have someone representing an organization to the public, that person will have some things the organization requires them to say, and there will be people on the other side who don't understand the bureaucratic language or refuse to accept it.
Similar thing happened to me while working for the Census. The Census Bureau has a prescribed questionairre with certain socially awkward things we have to say. I found that saying "Now, I know it's weird, but the government makes me ask this ..." is a good way to turn an awkward moment into a laugh and a valid response, particularly when I was forced to ask "Are you male or female?" to someone's face (It doesn't matter if you already know). But sometimes people just won't play along.
And if you order a quarter pounder you do have to say "without cheese"...
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