(no subject)

[badstar]

Trip up to PA was mostly uneventful, aside from this guy at Au Bon Pain in 30th Street Station berating me when I Ordered a Caprese sandwich...

Me: I'd like a Caprese sandwich please on rosemary bread, and add red peppers.
Him: A what?
Me: A Caprese sandwich.
Him: A what?
Me A Caprese sandwich.
Him: We don't have anyhitng called that.
Me: Yes, you do. It's on the menu.
Him: No it's not.
Me: Would you come out here from behind the counter a second please? (I was the only customer there)
He comes out from behind the counter.
Me: (pointing up at the menu) Caprese sandwich. Mozerella, tomato, basil pesto, romaine lettuce....
Him: (glaring at me like I'd just insulted his mother, going back behind the counter): You meen a Caprese sandwich, lady get it right if you expect anyone to know what you're talking about.
(He said it like "Caprice". I said it like "Caprayzay".)
Me: No, I pronounced it correctly, but either way, you don't have to be so rude about it. Now I'd really like one of those sandwiches please, otherwise I'd be taking my business elsewhere right now.


Telling mom about it later, she first laughed her ass off, then lectured me about how I can't expect anyone else to know how Italian words are pronounced just because I've studied the language. Um, seriously, I've never heard anyone anywhere say it any other way, studied the language or no. The guy was rude.

Whatever.

Speaking of my mom...it's official, she hates me.

She bought me another velour track suit. Whatever grievous offense I've committed, it must have been terrible. More later.

Comments

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of the sandwich before and yet how you say it would have been how I instinctively would have said it. Having grown up not (comparatively) far from you, I can see the linguistics behind it. Words tend to be pronounced as phonetically as possible (in this case the first E is taken as a hard E) and only if you can't say it at all without totally mucking up the word, then do you leave a letter silent.

Oh, and unrelated, I figured out what the problem was with Windows machines not showing up. I had a Win2k3 server with AFP extensions on the network previously and it was echoing SMB clients. I just have to decide now if I want to put another one back on the network (since said extensions are specific, I believe).

[erl-queen.livejournal.com]

Yup, you're right - I'm Italian, I should know! I wonder if everyone there has been pronouncing it caprice, or just him (because otherwise you'd think he'd have heard it said correctly by someone else at some point). You know, it's not the ignorance that gets me - you can't expect everyone to know everything after all - but just that he was so snotty about it when he was the wrong one! You might want to be absolutely sure you're right before you take that kind of attitude, you know?

[iamjanjan.livejournal.com]

he must have been a new employee...? either way that was rude.