I am driving home from football practice and my parents weren’t going to be home. So I pull into Mcdonalds to get some quick food. I order my meal and want it medium sized. I pull up and get a small as drink. I suddenly realize that Mcdonalds has their sizes, medium, large and Super Size. That is so retarted. Do they think we are impressed cuz they dont have a “small” size. Damn them. Grr, they just lost money.
Sorry about this small rant, but I just thought I would point this out so no one else gets tricked 
No… This is a valid point. And it’s not just McDonalds- It happens at the local StarFucks* down the street.
It’s a marketing ploy. Remember, the average consumer, who assumes the Straight Dope is a type of drug, will say, “Wow! No small size? What a deal!” When they get some little thimble filled with sugar water, they still don’t relized how stupid they are.
People who work in Marketing are some of the most diabolical geniuses I’ve ever seen, despite what Dilbert says.
-L
(* This is of course a whimsical reference to StarBucks, and not a mention of a sci-fi themed Brothel)
Nothing to add. That was just worth repeating. 
When I worked at McDonald’s twenty-something years ago we were specifically instructed not to say “small.” It was regular, medium or large.
Haj
No shit, re: Starbucks.
I never quite got that. The little shot glass size cup is a “Tall.” The we go up to Grande and then Viente. Which sounds cool, but not speaking Italian, means pretty much fuck-all to me.
Not like that matters, but why is the shortest cup refered to as a “Tall,” that’s all I want to know.
Well, “Tall” is smaller than “Taller” (Grande) and even more small than “Tallest” (Viente), so maybe this answers your question?
This it does. Thank you for the translation.
[sub]Did I mention I didn’t speak Italian[/sub]
Ok, then why don’t they refer to the “Tall” as however you say “tall” in Italian. Huh? Gotcha there, don’t I? Mr. Smart-guy.
And, the small Starbuck’s is actually called “short” (at least here in Canada, it is). The sizes are (in order): short, tall, grande, venti. Interestingly, in Japan, I noticed that they don’t have the short or venti sizes.
Actually, it’s not really all that interesting. I’ve just been reaching for excuses to mention that I was in Japan recently. Sigh.
Yeah, that’s got me perplexed as well.
Maybe “Tall” was offered as a “starting point” for all of those people who do not speak Italian? What I mean to say is if all three words were in Italian, how would Americans even start to order their coffee?
“Um, gimme a . . . middle one”
Then again, back to your original point, why have any of the words in Italian in the first place? Just a “trendy” marketing ploy?
Alright, you got me. I’ll never understand marketing.
No kidding. I doesn’t occur to anyone the the word "medium means “the one that comes inbetween.” And doesn’t really mean anything else.
And then I ask for a small and get told they don’t have small, like they don’t realize (or more acurratly their evil corporate overlords force them to pretend not to realize) I mean the smallest one they have. And force me to participate in their raping of the English language and use “medium” to mean smallest.
Why it’s down right Orwellian!!!
Well maybe it’s not that bad but it’s damned annoying.
At All Things Scottish, we have three sizes: wee, not-so-wee, and FRIGGIN’ HUUUUUUGE!!!
Personally, I’d like to see McDonald’s use a little quality control with their lettuce. I’m not sure of the legal definition, but something tells me “green” should be a prerequisite. A Big Mac with brown mulch just ain’t appetizing.
And what’s the deal with them giving out Light Mayo packets? I wanted regular mayo. They don’t stock it. You know, if I was concerned with my health, I wouldn’t be at McD’s in the first place.
“If it’s nae Scottish, it’s CRAP!!”
I used to work for Starbucks, and trust me, this drives the employees just as batty.
Originally, Starbucks had three sizes: 8, 12, and 16 oz. They called these short, tall, and grande. Makes sense so far, yes? This way, if someone walked up, no confusion when they asked for small, medium, or large. No big deal, no big issue. Until circa '96 when due “popular demand” the company introduced the Venti size, the 20oz. cup, get it? Venti, Veinte, almost like in Spanish too.
The company took the short size off the menu, but kept sending the cups to its stores because there are still a lot of people who just want a little cup of coffee, nothing wrong with that, except that now, when someone waddles up and says they want a “small latte” and the “barista” gives them the short latte, nine times out of ten this person will throw a shit fit. Which is why you have to go through that whole stupid rigamarole of “do you want the small, or the tall?” and why I had to smile while someone joked “I can’t speak Starbucks” for the gazillionth time that day. I am very happy I quit, but really people, how hard is it to look at the cup display on the wall, behind the counter and on the menu board?
By the way, the company has a pretty good mission, and do tons of charity work in their communities, it’s just the incompetent managers who hire apathetic employees and don’t even bother to train them. I never thought I would ever have to talk to another employee about not being rude to a customer, or “cussing” on the front line. It’s hard to do that and not look like a total asshole then though when you turn around and the manager is doing the exact same thing.
Agh, sorry for the hijack. I also hate that “I’m so cool I work at a coffee shop” attitude. And the “I’m so cool I spend $25 a day here at Starbucks and all the employees now my name.” Oh my gawd! Put down the Venti Extra Whip and Sauces Caramel Mocha Frappuccino and just go home to your family! Or the gym, whatever. Oh, and the parents who will spend $12 for their two drinks and then when Little Johnny/Janie asks for a little glass of milk (a whopping $1 value) they say, “No! Whaddya crazee? Youse thinks we made of money?!” I always threw it in for free. Otherwise I think I’d have to burn in hell for aiding and abetting this horrible behaviour.
Geez, there I went again. Maybe I should start a separate thread. No. I’m done, I swear, like the whole thing never happened.
I get this at Pizza Hut all the time. I tell them I want a small pizza. They tell me they don’t have a small, that medium is the smallest they have. I inform them that, by definition, medium cannot be the smallest size. Then they stutter and shuffle their feet and wish I would go away.
Oh, good, somebody started a McDonald’s thread, so now I don’t have to.
See, I love Carl’s Jr. They’ve got fattening, disgusting food, and they’re fucking proud of it. Fast food is for people who are poor and in a rush, period, and Carl’s embraces this theme. If you want real food, they say, then go to Jerry’s. Conversely, McDonald’s likes to play themselves up as just shy of being a fuckin’ gourmet restaurant. Their commercials show kids going there for their fuckin’ prom dinner. What kind of bird-turd dumbshittin’ vomit-gulping cheap-fucking-skate goes to McDonald’s for their prom dinner?!?!?
Now, the main reason why I like Carl’s… they’ve put effort into designing a “super-size” cup that actually fits in the fucking cupholders in your car. It’s a pretty ingenius design, too. And sturdier. But McShit’s? Nah. They give you this gigantic, barrel-sized piece of recycled newsprint to act as a cup. Not only is it flimsy as hell (squeeze it too tight and it’ll collapse, spilling its contents onto, well, you), but this thing is fucking HUGE. It will NOT fit into any cupholders that I know of. I found out just HOW badly it fits earlier this evening, when the whole thing spilled - the car wasn’t even moving - its entire contents out onto me and the driver’s-side floor. What seemed like a new Niagara Falls of Pibbsprite gushed out onto the parking lot, providing enough nourishment for eighteen trillion of the resident ants.
Now, I’m a poor college student (but I repeat myself). I can GREATLY appreciate cheap food. Hell, I don’t even ask for much quality in return. Slap a piece of charbroiled cardboard between two urine-soaked pieces of sponge, top it with a square of melted flesh stripped off a wildebeest, and add some puree of fetus as sauce, and I’ll buy that horrid concoction for 39¢. But is it too much to ask that I get a cup that fits in the godforsaken cupholder?
In the UK, the branches of Merkin “restaurants” such as McDonalds try to foist this trick off on us as well. However I know of nobody who ever says anything other than “small”, “medium” or “large” to mean precisely that. Even the service drones make no attempt to use the “correct” names.
I think that if I asked for a “small” and got the reply “we don’t have that”, the entire body of people in the place would stop whatever they were doing and stare.
It’s like there’s a national conspiracy to repel the language invasion 
pan
[sup][sub]This post brought to you by the Royal Society for the Protection of Quotation Marks[/sub][/sup]
Incidentally SPOOFE - that was hilarious. Cheers.
I’ve actually seen the “bird-turd dumbshittin’ vomit-gulping cheap-fucking-skate” that goes to McDonald’s for their prom dinner. I had the same reaction as you, but I’ve seen it nonetheless. To me, the point of prom was to spend loads of money and pretend that you were made of money, so that later on when you hit the “real world” you could at least say that for one or two nights (depending on how many proms you went to) you lived the rich-bitch life.
Dear lord…
Did they have all their teeth? Or were they, like, 5? Or maybe they were recent immigrants from Somalia?
I mean… what kind of people actually go to effin’ McDonald’s for Prom?!?
(Oh, and Kabbes… thanks. Someday, I’ll be cooler than ol’ Fenny. Not today, but someday.)