Hotel Blog: Questions over Breakfast
2nd October, 2011.
I love the English language and so I always try to treat it with the reverence it deserves. It is a complex creature, filled with ambiguities and rife with the potential for misunderstanding. Often it will be the case that a sentence can be open to a misinterpretation and confusion has the chance to rear its head.
However, it is my opinion that a sentence such as “I’m afraid we stopped serving breakfast at ten” is not.
In fact I’m not sure the sentence could be more concise. It is polite without being obsequious, informative without being verbose and it is comprised to simple words.
So, imagine my surprise. It’s 11:10am. Breakfast had been finished for one hour and ten minutes and I was in the restaurant area cleaning tables. We open for breakfast at 7am on weekdays and 8am at weekends. We tend to be rather busy at breakfasts and we also get busy at lunch too, so a good two hours between 10am and 12pm is vital for getting the restaurant cleaned again and ready for that possible lunch rush. I haven’t even mentioned the chef’s who need those two hours to turn a breakfast kitchen into a lunchtime kitchen. Going straight through without a break is inconceivable. Also it’s nice to sit down, have a cup of tea and maybe visit the toilet in the intervening time. Anyway, there I was, laying cutlery on the tables with my work colleague Joe and outside we see a family park up next to the hotel and out they pour, headed for the restaurant.
The head of the family, the Dad, he walked up to me and without breaking pace he asks “Are you still serving breakfast?” He was an hour and ten minutes too late for breakfast. Unfortunately, since it was still technically morning this meant his question was not entirely unreasonable and that, in turn, meant I still had to be polite to him.
So I replied politely. “I’m afraid we stopped serving breakfast at ten”
He then asked “Not even serving Full English breakfasts?”
Did you notice my use of italics? He placed emphasis on the word ‘English’, as though ‘English breakfast’ might not have been something we classed as ‘breakfast’; as though it were something else entirely. Perhaps he thought I was lying. Or, it’s only just occurred to me now as I’m writing, perhaps he thought I had misunderstood him and was trying to be helpful. So I replied by repeating myself exactly.
“I’m afraid we stopped serving breakfast at ten”
It’s a favourite trick of mine when people ask stupid questions to which you’ve already given the answer. You repeat the sentence and you repeat it exactly. Same tone of voice, stresses and emphases in all the same places. The secret is to sound almost as though you could be playing a recording of your earlier self. If you do it just right, it makes the person feel really stupid without them ever suspecting that you are mocking them.
(I won’t lie it’s hard to pull off and doesn’t always work. There is always the risk they will catch on to your mockery and then you’re in trouble. In this case however, I want you to know that I pulled it off with aplomb.)
With that the man’s spirit deflated before my very eyes and he led his family back to the car. I was thankful to see them all go but the whole ordeal stayed with me a while and I was left thinking;
Why did he ask that second question?
“Some people just want to cling on the dream for as long as possible.”
Maybe that was it. Perhaps the gentleman had just been harbouring a deep longing for our English breakfast and I had dashed his hoped with one fell swoop of my robotic voice.
One hour and ten minutes. He should have set an alarm.
I love the English language and so I always try to treat it with the reverence it deserves. It is a complex creature, filled with ambiguities and rife with the potential for misunderstanding. Often it will be the case that a sentence can be open to a misinterpretation and confusion has the chance to rear its head.
However, it is my opinion that a sentence such as “I’m afraid we stopped serving breakfast at ten” is not.
In fact I’m not sure the sentence could be more concise. It is polite without being obsequious, informative without being verbose and it is comprised to simple words.
So, imagine my surprise. It’s 11:10am. Breakfast had been finished for one hour and ten minutes and I was in the restaurant area cleaning tables. We open for breakfast at 7am on weekdays and 8am at weekends. We tend to be rather busy at breakfasts and we also get busy at lunch too, so a good two hours between 10am and 12pm is vital for getting the restaurant cleaned again and ready for that possible lunch rush. I haven’t even mentioned the chef’s who need those two hours to turn a breakfast kitchen into a lunchtime kitchen. Going straight through without a break is inconceivable. Also it’s nice to sit down, have a cup of tea and maybe visit the toilet in the intervening time. Anyway, there I was, laying cutlery on the tables with my work colleague Joe and outside we see a family park up next to the hotel and out they pour, headed for the restaurant.
The head of the family, the Dad, he walked up to me and without breaking pace he asks “Are you still serving breakfast?” He was an hour and ten minutes too late for breakfast. Unfortunately, since it was still technically morning this meant his question was not entirely unreasonable and that, in turn, meant I still had to be polite to him.
So I replied politely. “I’m afraid we stopped serving breakfast at ten”
He then asked “Not even serving Full English breakfasts?”
Did you notice my use of italics? He placed emphasis on the word ‘English’, as though ‘English breakfast’ might not have been something we classed as ‘breakfast’; as though it were something else entirely. Perhaps he thought I was lying. Or, it’s only just occurred to me now as I’m writing, perhaps he thought I had misunderstood him and was trying to be helpful. So I replied by repeating myself exactly.
“I’m afraid we stopped serving breakfast at ten”
It’s a favourite trick of mine when people ask stupid questions to which you’ve already given the answer. You repeat the sentence and you repeat it exactly. Same tone of voice, stresses and emphases in all the same places. The secret is to sound almost as though you could be playing a recording of your earlier self. If you do it just right, it makes the person feel really stupid without them ever suspecting that you are mocking them.
(I won’t lie it’s hard to pull off and doesn’t always work. There is always the risk they will catch on to your mockery and then you’re in trouble. In this case however, I want you to know that I pulled it off with aplomb.)
With that the man’s spirit deflated before my very eyes and he led his family back to the car. I was thankful to see them all go but the whole ordeal stayed with me a while and I was left thinking;
Why did he ask that second question?
- Is it possible he thought that I was lying and if so, what possible reason would I have to have done so? This seems unlikely, I have an honest face.
- Is it possible he thought I was mistaken? Perhaps he thought he knew the answer deep down and by asking me about ‘English breakfasts’ he was giving me a sporting chance to redeem myself and save myself some embarrassment. This, however, seems as unlikely as the first option
- Maybe in his mind there exists some distinction between what we consider breakfast and what he does. Perhaps in his mind there is an obvious separation between ‘breakfast’ and ‘English breakfast’, a separation which we at the hotel are just not aware of. I like this option the best. It suggests there are some wonderful things going on in his mind when it comes to the classification of everyday objects and their nouns. However unlike the previous two options, I also suspect it’s not the case.
- Finally, perhaps the gentleman was just stupid.
“Some people just want to cling on the dream for as long as possible.”
Maybe that was it. Perhaps the gentleman had just been harbouring a deep longing for our English breakfast and I had dashed his hoped with one fell swoop of my robotic voice.
One hour and ten minutes. He should have set an alarm.