When is a bagel not a bagel?

[silverfox]

Three cheers for the English Professor who refused to use Starbucks marketing speak to order her bagel. A bagel is a bagel - why does Starbucks insist a plain bagel is a bagel without butter or cheese?

English professor 'thrown out of Starbucks after objecting to corporate language'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7949440/English-professor-thrown-out-of-Starbucks-after-objecting-to-corporate-language.html

[Jah Lush]

When you order at Starfucks obviously. Corporate cunts!

[HAL9000]

Why would a major British broadsheet write up a trivial spat in a coffee shop 3,471 miles from here?

Must have been the mother of slow news days.

[woofmarkthedog]

Good God..

( doesn't that look good )

I'm soooo "peckish" now..

http://img.timeinc.net/recipes/i/recipes/su/05/08/salmon-bagel-su-682809-l.jpg

( Jah, I know you are licking your lips too )

W**F

[Jah Lush]

I make you right there Hal.

[DJKillaQueen]

I want a bagel now ......damn you woof!

[silverfox]

Hal, when you order a portion of chips from a chip shop do you ask for chips without salt and vinegar, mayonnaise, tomato ketchup, HP sauce etc?

'Course you don't - chips are chips, linguistically and conceptually. Three cheers for the Professor for standing up for commonsense in a world where it's being eroded.

[HAL9000]

silverfox Wrote:

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> Hal, when you order a portion of chips from a chip

> shop do you ask for chips without salt and vinegar

Actually, I always ask for a small portion of chips with no salt and vinegar! In fact, I'm going to email the New York Times with this - they're bound to pick it up - they might even syndicate it back to the Telegraph.

[silverfox]

Hal, you don't fool me. Anyone who is pedantic enough to quote the distance to the Starbucks coffee shop (or should I say outlet?) on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to the nearest mile as you have done above cannot fail to grasp the Professor's valid point. You may well ask for your chips without salt and vinegar but I doubt the vendor will refuse to sell you those chips if you don't specify that you don't require the added condiments. Next you'll be telling me you ask for your bread from bakeries with no butter and jam.

[HAL9000]

The underlying issue is not without interest - it's just the way the real story has been bundled along with an inconsequential communications failure between an over-inflated customer and a lowly employee of a fast-food outlet.

I'd have far more respect for the English Professor had she written an informative newspaper article about corporate language abuse instead of causing a confrontation that had her ejected from the premises.

[Lost Yorkshire Man]

Why do people insist that a teacake has currants in it when that is clearly a currant teacake!!!?

[jblack]

Does this woman complain to McDonalds that if she wants a hamburger she has to ask for it with no relish or gherkins? It's not a language issue at all - just a question of product descriptions. If a Starbucks bagel is a bagel with butter and cheese then it's perfectly acceptable to have to ask for it with no butter or cheese if you want it plain. Now, describing a medium size drink as a Grande, that's wrong. And describing the filthy dishwater they serve as coffee, that's a crime.

[RosieH]

Jah Lush Wrote:

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> I make you right there Hal.

Come now the pair of you - you know it's silly season, right? Mariticidal swans and stoopid bagel rows - roll on September 6th.

Still, I'm with the prof all the way.

[woofmarkthedog]

I make the Prof right too..

It's a national scourge though.

I was in L.A with an old pal who lives right on the beach & we went to the diner for breakfast. So far so good however, when we ordered he said " I'll have the banana pancakes but hold the banana & hold the cream"

I wanted a chicken sandwich

"We only do a bacon, chicken club so order that but hold the bacon"

" So, I'll get a chicken sandwich then" I said

"No, you'll get a bacon, chicken club but the bacon held"

I shook my head

Why so stupidly complicated

W**F

[Jah Lush]

RosieH Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Jah Lush Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > I make you right there Hal.

>

>

> Come now the pair of you - you know it's silly

> season, right? Mariticidal swans and stoopid bagel

> rows - roll on September 6th.

>

> Still, I'm with the prof all the way.

Yeah I'm aware of that but I'm also with the Professor.

[jumpinjackflash]

ringed donuts are sugared bagels

I've never gone to Starbucks and asked for Venti or Tall or Grande - just medium or large and they seem to understand OK..although when you order coffee I wish they would actualy give you coffee and not that watery, over-milky froth they call coffee..their Cheese & Marmite toasties are darn good though

[felt-tip]

serves her right for going to starbucks.

[DJKillaQueen]

Ah but a doughnut is not a bagel....different recipe.

Tea is the same as coffee....

I want tea...

Earl Grey, Breakfast or some other?

If I wanted Earl Grey or some other I'd ask for it.

Why is it all so complicated these days?

[DulwichFox]

All this banter.

Why can't we just let 'Bagels Be Bagels'

He He

[expat]

I thought they were called beigels but then I used to live in the East End

[Moos]

I bet the conversation went like this:

Prof: Bagel please

Poor sod paid ?4/hour: Butter or cheese?

Prof: Did I say butter or cheese?

PSP?$/H: Er, no - they come with butter or cheese, which do you want?

Prof: I asked for a bagel. I don't want butter or cheese.

PSP?$/H: Oh, OK - you want a plain bagel.

Prof: I want a bagel!

PSP?$/H: Yes, but a bagel comes with butter or cheese. Is that what you want?

Prof: Just give me a bagel! The English language is a beautiful and precise instrument. Had I wanted any dairy products adorning my bagel I would have waxed lyrical as to the delights of toppings, the -

*the crowd building up behind starts to shift on its feet. Prof turns around and is delighted to find she has an audience, her lectures don't garner this sort of rapt attention. Her Celtic earrings swing wildly*

- it's really perfectly simple, just give me a bagel! Or do I have to get you sacked to get some service, you stupid little man?

PSP?$/H: Hey, don't call me names. If you want a bagel, it comes with butter or cheese. If you want a plain bagel just say so.

Prof: I want to see the manager, my father didn't fight the Germans for me to be treated with this sort of linguistic hullaballoo, this PR bullying, this impertinent twisting of our mother tongue

*etc etc*

PSP?$/H: Um...

[PeckhamRose]

*Looks up bagel recipes in the all American Bread Machine recipe book, and decides to make some tomorrow....*

[Brendan]

When it's turned into a ring.

[silverfox]

Witty Moos, but then again the conversation may have gone like this:

Prof: "Begal please"

Corporate lackey: "Butter or cheese?"

Prof: "Begal please"

Corporate lackey: "Negative. Does not compute. You're not going to get anything unless you say butter or cheese'"

Prof: "Begal please"

Corporate lackey: "Get the manager"

Starbucks manager: (Dials 911) "Hello Police ... we've got a weirdo here who refuses to say butter or cheese when ordering a begal without butter or cheese ... yes, the Starbucks outlet on the Upper West Side where our highly trained baristas will give you the ultimate coffee experience ... okay see you in a minute"

Cops: (Screech of cars and sirens) "Okay Prof assume the position. Koalsky, read her her rights. We're taking you downtown." (Manacle the 60-year old academic with cable ties and bundle her into car).

Starbucks manager: "Have a nice day"

[Wilhelm]

Christ Almighty. Have a day off the lot of you.