# It's called an Arnold Palmer for a reason, douche. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 19, 2007, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707 "2007-05-19T08:33:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/221 "2007-05-23T20:03:09Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] The proof was that _she_ felt the same way, that he was obviously saying it to make the drink more “black”. [/QUOTE] Oh, _obviously_. And you’ve got a Mother of Black Children to back you up. That’s something. ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/222 "2007-05-23T20:04:57Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] … he was obviously saying it to make the drink more “black”. [/QUOTE] Dude, you keep _saying_ that, but nobody’s _buying_. The only thing I see here is that you’re pedantic to the point of annoyance about calling a drink it’s “proper” name when a customer _dares_ to call it by its ingredients. From the tone of your writing, I can just see your nose lifted two feet in the air as you deign to sniff at the customer as you correct her. And when she digs at you by insisting on calling the drink by _another name_ … the horror! :eek: I get the feeling that the whole “racist” angle is something you’ve invented whole cloth just to justify your snootiness. Maybe you’re not even consciously aware of it, maybe you’ve told the story enough that by this time you actually believe it. But I gotta tell you, from where I’m sitting, the racism is all in your head. Think how ridiculous this all sounds. Someone is “blackifying” a “white” drink? Come on! ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/223 "2007-05-23T20:09:54Z")
:rolleyes: OK, believe what you want. Surely all black people love all white people and nobody would dare try to blackify a drink named after a white person for no other reason than that the inventor of the drink was white. In the famous words of Eric Cartman, screw you guys - I’m going home. ---
**Author:** ![Hugh\_Jass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4da419/32.png) [@Hugh\_Jass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hugh_Jass)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/224 "2007-05-23T20:19:26Z")
This thread is exhausting. After work, I’m gonna stop by a convenience store, buy me some malt liquor, vodka, and lemonade (as described [here](http://www.mixeddrinkrecipes.net/recipes/display/24491/)) and have me a delicious “Ted Danson” ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/225 "2007-05-23T20:21:15Z")
[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow] Regarding **Rigamarole’s** “vindication,” I must say my BS meter went “tilt.” [/QUOTE] Ha! My bullshitometer went tilt all the way back on [page 2](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8591198&postcount=79) ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/226 "2007-05-23T20:23:27Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] :rolleyes: OK, believe what you want. Surely all black people love all white people and nobody would dare try to blackify a drink named after a white person for no other reason than that the inventor of the drink was white. [/QUOTE] Gosh, is this more of that heavy sarcasm? I see why you found it so convincing! ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/227 "2007-05-23T20:28:48Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] :rolleyes: OK, believe what you want. Surely all black people love all white people and nobody would dare try to blackify a drink named after a white person for no other reason than that the inventor of the drink was white. [/QUOTE] Dude, I don’t descend to insults very often, not even in the deepest parts of the Pit, but it’s pretty clear that you’re an idiot. It’s so OBVIOUS to you that race is behind this – except that your conclusion doesn’t follow from what you have related. Why assume the worst? Why pointedly ignore all the white folk who innocently call an iced-tea and lemonade a “Tiger Woods?” Is [Bobby Lloyd](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D07E1D81730F931A35754C0A961958260) a Black Panther agitator? > [@](#): > > ‘‘Smoothies are the big sellers, but our lemonades blended with mango, melon and mint are also popular,’’ said Bobbie Lloyd, the manager and an owner of It’s a Wrap, 2012 Broadway (68th Street). ‘‘We’ve also adopted a country-club drink called the Arnold Palmer, a mixture of lemonade and iced tea, but for this generation we’re calling it the Tiger Woods.’’ Are you angry at this Upper West Side WASP for “blackifying” the name of the beverage? Do you ascribe sinister or small-minded motives to her? Why not? Oh, right, because that would be fucking moronic. ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/228 "2007-05-23T20:33:17Z")
Damn, Rig, do you even listen to yourself? The problem here is that your very assumptions are biased to begin with. If someone calls this stupid concoction a “Tiger Woods” instead of an “Arnold Palmer”, they _must_ be trying to [QUOTE=Rigamarole] blackify a drink named after a white person [/QUOTE] There’s a whole ass-load of assumptions in that phrase, my friend. You don’t _know_ why a customer might use one name in place of the other. OK, sure, maybe in some cases it is some sort of “racial attitude”. It’s possible. It’s also possible that it’s an “age-ist attitude” of substituting the younger for the older. Maybe it’s just a case of someone being a fan of one more than the other. Shit, maybe someone has only ever heard it referred to as a “Tiger Woods” and has no fucking clue why you’re being such an obnoxious bastard about “correcting” it. Furthermore, you are so very off base here in another fashion. It doesn’t fucking _matter_ what their motivations are. Just take people’s orders and stop fucking “correcting” them. It’s goddamned annoying whether it’s you insisting on calling a mixture of tea and lemonade an “Arnold Palmer” or a Starbucks serf insisting on calling a large coffee a “Venti Drip”. Gah! ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/229 "2007-05-23T20:39:06Z")
I have now read the whole thread. That’s right, every post. Whew! Is it just me or is this the biggest tempest in a teapot I ever heard of? The only thing I have to say is I’d be annoyed too, if you corrected the name of a drink. If I want a raspberry lemonade and most of the world calls it something else AND IT’S NOT LISTED ON YOUR MENU AS YOUR LITTLE SPECIAL NAME - I’m calling it a freakin’ raspberry lemonade and I don’t care what you say. Honestly, what are we supposed to do, read minds? A lot of us grew up in drastically different backgrounds. Ask any child of immigrants…we are missing a whole chunk of pop culture, the one that our parents grew up in. Most of us don’t know anything about our parents’ generation. So often I have been in situations where I’m expected to know something and don’t. Deal! ---
**Author:** ![Uvula\_Donor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e19adc/32.png) [@Uvula\_Donor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uvula_Donor)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/230 "2007-05-23T20:54:53Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] In Wisconson, you have to be specific about ordering a “Manhattan with bourbon”, otherwise you’ll get it made with brandy. That’s a shock no one should have to endure. [/QUOTE] Hell, at **Rigamarole** ’s bar, elderly black women order Manhattans and call them _Harlems!_ It makes the veins pop out on his forehead, blackifying a perfectly good drink like that. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/231 "2007-05-23T21:15:27Z")
[QUOTE=Uvula Donor] Hell, at **Rigamarole** ’s bar, elderly black women order Manhattans and call them _Harlems!_ It makes the veins pop out on his forehead, blackifying a perfectly good drink like that. [/QUOTE] Yeah, but those are made with Courvoisier VSOP. And Arnold Palmer doesn’t drink them with his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on principle. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/59ef9b/32.png) [@Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_fight_the_hypothetical)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/232 "2007-05-24T02:02:59Z")
**Rig** , real question. Suppose she changed the name to a black golfer’s name specifically because she is black. How does that make it racism? ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/233 "2007-05-24T02:14:55Z")
I have a dream I dream that someday our drinks will be judged NOT by the colour of the golfer who popularised them But on the ingredients that make them ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/234 "2007-05-24T02:29:42Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] I have now read the whole thread. That’s right, every post. Whew! Is it just me or is this the biggest tempest in a teapot I ever heard of? [/QUOTE] No. You must have missed the one where a lady ordered _milk_ in a bar. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/235 "2007-05-24T02:42:27Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] I have now read the whole thread. That’s right, every post. [/QUOTE] Oh. Yeah, you don’t want to do that. Skip to the punchlines. “Madam, if I were **Arnold Palmer** , I would drink it.” ---
**Author:** ![twopiecesofeight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@twopiecesofeight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twopiecesofeight)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/236 "2007-05-24T03:20:39Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] Last time I ordered a Roy Rogers, the bartender didn’t know what it was. When I told him how to make it, he said, “Oh, I learned that as a Darth Vader.” The same drink is called different things in different areas. That’s not so unusual as there are regional names for other things too. [/QUOTE] The Roy Rogers is my favorite drink! In my experience, about half the time the server or bartender knows what it is. The other half of the time, I end up saying, “It’s coke, grenadine syrup, and a maraschino cherry over ice. Please don’t forget the cherry.” I don’t drink alcohol, so when my friends order their “whiskey sours”, “martinis”, or “cosmos”, I want to fit in by using a cool-sounding drink name, too. But once I have to explain what it is, it’s like explaining why the punch line of a joke is so funny. Kills the mood. 🙂 Maybe one of these days, I should stick to Shirley Temples. Everyone knows what those are, right?! **Frank** , having read the thread in question, I’m _never_ going to order milk at bar. (Not that I have before, mind you. Just sayin’.) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/237 "2007-05-24T03:41:10Z")
[QUOTE=NoClueBoy] I have a dream I dream that someday our drinks will be judged NOT by the colour of the golfer who popularised them But on the ingredients that make them [/QUOTE] In that case, it sounds like the ultimate extension of the Southern practice of fortifying a drink with citrus and sugar, a practice I personally find repugnant but which is enjoyed by many south of the Mason/Dixon line. Arnold Palmer needs to stick to golfing and leave the culinary disasters to Rachel Ray. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/238 "2007-05-24T03:58:53Z")
[QUOTE=Don’t fight the hypothetical] **Rig** , real question. Suppose she changed the name to a black golfer’s name specifically because she is black. How does that make it racism? [/QUOTE] OK, real answer? Because it belittles the person who invented it, and by extension their race, by implying “I know who invented it, but I will call it by the name of someone who had absolutely nothing to do with it who is of a race I prefer.” As a server I have to put up with plenty of belittling attitudes to begin with, and when shit like this goes down, it certainly doesn’t help. So you can argue all you want about whether that was really her intention (which it was, I know this based on actually being there and having similar past experiences) and I don’t give a damn. But at the core of it, that’s really the whole reason it bothered me. And it was nothing monumental, by now I’ve long since let it go - I’ve just popped in here a bit to at least try and defend the integrity of my original statements, and I stand by them. That being said, from now on let there be merriment and ice cream, so I hereby decree. (or just let the thread die, but I’m not arguing any further) ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/59ef9b/32.png) [@Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_fight_the_hypothetical)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/239 "2007-05-24T04:42:17Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] OK, real answer? Because it belittles the person who invented it, and **by extension their race** , by implying “I know who invented it, but I will call it by the name of someone who had absolutely nothing to do with it who is of a race I prefer.” As a server I have to put up with plenty of belittling attitudes to begin with, and when shit like this goes down, it certainly doesn’t help. [/QUOTE] Huh!? Thank you for your straight answer, however you did not make your case. By what extension? Given your OP I see nothing that indicated she knew who invented it. You didn’t even convince me of belittlement. Another real question: If the exact conversation had taken place with a white patron would you still view it as racism? ---
**Author:** ![rayh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@rayh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayh)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707/240 "2007-05-24T05:23:22Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] OK, real answer? Because it belittles the person who invented it, [/QUOTE] You keep saying this, but you do realise he only popularised the drink, he didn’t invent it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-called-an-arnold-palmer-for-a-reason-douche/404707.md?page=13)