Interesting Links for 05-08-2015

[andrewducker]

• Footage shows Tory whip saying government could cover up scandals involving MPs and 'small boys'
  • (tags: Child_abuse politics conservatives )
• Reinventing Performance Management
  • (tags: performance management work productivity )
• The Ada Initiative is shutting down
  • (tags: women technology support )
• Corbyn's left: naive, or just 'not arseholes'?
  • (tags:

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

I don't see how it's pedantic. Rather, it's a matter of semantics. The article sums it up perfectly at the end: 'Essentially, I'd been asking for the equivalent of a black coffee with milk.'

[andrewducker]

Kind-of. It doesn't literally mean that.

Imagine that, for whatever reason, a "black coffee" was known as a "Bob" in England. Because Sir Robert Havistock was famous for always demanding his coffee with no impurities in it.

Someone from Germany wanders wanders into your coffee and says "I'd like a Bob please, with milk."

You can't expect them to know the rich cultural heritage and history which lead to a "Bob" meaning "With nothing in it". All they know is that a "Bob" means a basic coffee, and they want something like that, with milk in it.

You can either say "Sure, here you go, £1.50 please", or you can say "Ahahahaha, there's no such thing as a Bob with milk, you silly foreigner who does not know our ways."

Hint: The first answer doesn't make you a complete arse.

[momentsmusicaux]

You're assuming they're being like that out of pedantry. I think it's more that it just doesn't make sense to them.

[andrewducker]

"You can't have a marinara with mozzarella," she says. "It doesn't exist."

Is a statement which literally makes no sense to me. It assumes a master list of food which "does exist", and all other food is incomprehensible, because it's not on the list.

"I suppose," she mutters grudgingly, "I could make you a margherita with garlic."

Oh, it turns out she does understand, and knows exactly what he's asking for. She's just being a dick about it.

[momentsmusicaux]

The concept doesn't exist. Because it's not what a marinara IS. It's not what it means. Since my last comment I've been wondering whether some of this is to do with the way that Italian culture (like French) feels quite a lot under threat from Anglo-US culture (and language). Words and concepts are things to be defended. The marinara is what it is, and an outsider is not allowed to try to change it.

[andrewducker]

"Words and concepts are things to be defended. "

Yes, that's exactly right. She's prioritising words and concepts over people.

To me, that's awful, incredibly impolite, behaviour.

[momentsmusicaux]

They're concepts that are part of people's identity. That's to be defended.

[andrewducker]

If they want to defend their combinations of ingredients as being vital to their identity, then that's their right.

It's also awful, incredibly impolite, behaviour.

[andrewducker]

Oh - to be clear - if the original response had been "I'm sorry, we only make pizzas here the traditional way. I believe that the way my parents made pizzas, and their parents, and their parents before them, is the best way to make pizzas, and I only combine ingredients in the tried and tested ways that have been passed down for generations. If you want a new-fangled pizza with pineapple on top, and cheese in the crusts then possibly you should try Pizza Hut down the road." then I'd have been fine with that.

It's the "*GASP* A BLACK COFFEE WITH MILK? THAT UNPOSSIBLE!" that gets to me.

[momentsmusicaux]

Again: cultural differences (and even personal -- I would find just being told to go elsewhere ruder). Neither of us knows that 'it doesn't exist' actually means idiomatically in Italian. I would suspect it's akin to 'ca ne se fait pas' in French ('it's not done'). Which carries a lot more weight in French than it does in English.

[cmcmck]

Non esiste- it doesn't exist

la sua non è la cosa fatta- it's not the done thing

And the second carries the same sort of weight as in French.

I'm not sure how far 'not the done thing' carries the weight in English that it once did.

The widespread Italian pizza culture outside its heartland in Napoli is, in reality, as modern a concept as it is everywhere else!

[momentsmusicaux]

It occurs to me that maybe she said 'non c'e'. Could that also be translated into English as 'it doesn't exist' in this particular scenario, and by that particular writer?

[cmcmck]

That's literally 'there is not' so I guess it could have been taken that way.

We don't know how fluent the writer's Italian is, of course and mine is way less than perfect as it's a third language.

Fwiw, I'll admit to being a pizza snob! :o)

[simont]

The concept doesn't exist. Because it's not what a marinara IS. It's not what it means.

But that doesn't make it incomprehensible, even if it's wrong!

If I ask for a black coffee with milk, it wouldn't seem totally unreasonable for a barista to helpfully point out that that's actually a thing with its own name and it would be easier in future to ask for a white coffee. Perhaps not all customers would appreciate that particular style of helpfulness, but it could be defended as basically well-meant - as long as, in addition to the semantic correction, the barista also actually serves me the thing I asked for.

For the person to look totally blank, and pretend total incomprehension, and wait for me to guess what in their huge lexicon of pointless terminology they might prefer me to use to describe the combination of stuff I want, that is surely deliberate unhelpfulness at a level which should not make it surprising if customers start taking their business elsewhere.

[camies]

I've asked for a white coffee and got one that was mostly milk. I like a small amount of milk in an otherwise black coffee, not something that is largely milk. So I think asking for a black coffee with milk - possibly on the side - is a good strategy.

[errolwi]

Especially if they serve flat whites, which definitely isn't a black coffee with some milk.
When I was last in Melbourne, I ordered a coffee in Kiwi, which got me a puzzled look for the second it took the other barista to translate to the local term ('skinny', rather than 'trim').