Comment on Black coffee
Pika@sh.itjust.works 2 hours agoTo me, it’s more I wouldn’t want to sound weird to everyone else around me. Asking for a black coffee with no cream or sugar is to the same effect of saying “hi yes I would like scrambled eggs cooked please”.
If I went to my bank teller and said “Yea I would like to cash this check please” you aren’t expected to have to say “I would like to cash this check back as cash please”
klugerama@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
For all the examples you listed, how often is the result wrong to to lack of communication? Have you ever ordered scrambled eggs and received them uncooked, because they didn’t understand what scrambled means? Have you ever asked to cash a check, and the bank teller gave you…something other than cash?
Those are examples of things that don’t require clarification, ever. Because there is no variation of those that is even slightly common. No one ever says they want scrambled eggs raw. No one ever asks to cash a check in any other way than to receive cash. There’s no common precedent for a mistake here.
But black coffee is, evidently, just enough of a fuzzy area that it happens sometimes. I guarantee you that people order black coffee with cream and sugar, because they either think “black coffee” means “coffee” or because they think saying “black coffee” means “drip coffee” and distinguishes it from espresso.
Yes, it shouldn’t be a problem, but it is a problem. So where’s the harm in changing how you order it and saying “coffee no cream no sugar” instead of “black coffee”? Just don’t say black coffee and it won’t sound redundant.
Pika@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
I understand your point but, I see black coffee to fall under the same area.
A black coffee is exactly that, when you modify it it’s no longer a black coffee. Just like if you say you are cashing a check but you want to deposit it instead, that’s depositing a check not cashing it. When you add a modifier to a word like that, the expectation is that the modifier is honored.
I don’t see a precedent where a black coffee should be able to be misconstrued. I can understand your example of the drip coffee, but people saying that are going to just use “drip coffee”, “coffee”, “normal coffee” or any other phrase that isn’t already an existing product in the world. And if it is misconstrued by the consumer, that is the customers problem, and if they receive the wrong product they will realize the issue and fix it for next time.
You could change how you order it but, the fact is it shouldn’t be required for an establishment to provide what is ordered. The barista not knowing what a black coffee is, at the end of the day is a failure on the establishment, and indicates the employee likely wasn’t trained adequately for the job. Forcing the consumer to change how they order may help the customer, but it isn’t going to help the underlining issue which is that the barista doesn’t know what “black coffee” means.