Blimey, only took me ten minutes to work it out!
That one, I got instantly.
At least it explains Taco Bell’s bell symbol, if patchily.
Then you misread the comment. He is saying he’s apologizing NOW, 50 years later, not that he felt bad about it at the time.
Frankly, I wouldn’t have called it, either. Because you guys seem to be ignoring that the people being scared were attempting to break the law and could have harmed the store. You can’t bypass the sale system and pay the cashier for the item without ringing it up, bypassing the ID requirement and any licensing needed to sell the item. The store could have legitimately gotten in tons of trouble for what they did.
I find it utterly unexpected that you guys are all like “Poor criminals! They got scared they might have gotten caught!”
Have you ever worked a day in your life? Do you have any idea what you are talking about? A couple of young people who were working a low paying retail job were trying to do what they could to keep the customer happy. The threat of being caught was lower than the threat of being screamed at by someone who couldn’t get their booze. Retail workers get shit on all the time by people like you who have never had to do anything hard in their lives. The worse part is that they are paying for you to stay home and do nothing hard. Enjoy your tax payer funded disability checks.
When I worked fast food, customers would have trouble every single time we rolled out a product with a foreign name. “Rotisserie” became “rote-is-airy”, “rosary”, or “rosemary”. “Ciabatta” became “see-ya-bot-ta”, and the bruschetta on it was “bruce-chet-ah”. “Pita” was “pit-uh”. “Chorizo” was “chore-is-oh”. I even had a few old-timers pronounce tortilla as “tor-till-ah”.
I’m just glad we never had anything with aioli on it - some of our customers might have hurt themselves trying to pronounce it.
One day I was working as a clerk in a dollar store, the kind with no chain affiliation that sprung up everywhere back in the mid to late nineties. We had a sale going on that day. A customer walked in and I said “Everything’s 88 cents today!” He responded, “OK, here’s a dollar- I’ll take everything!” I angrily told him I meant 88 cents each.
(So, the customer was really me, but the clerk was pissed! I did buy a clip-on car visor lighted vanity mirror which I still have.)
Eh, I’ll give them a pass on that. It’s still mispronounced by most people I hear who call it “bru-shetta” instead of “bru-sketta”.
Why would an honest person attempt to talk someone else into breaking the law? Why would a random customer (not an actual representative of law/government) feel it’s their job to test the employees of a business? Why would an honest person say they’re a Federal agent when they’re not? Then think it’s funny when they’ve frightened two young women?
It was a dick move.
Not to mention that I’ve had customers swear at me, scream at me, and even threaten me when I’ve denied an alcohol sale. The difference is that I’m getting to be an old fart these days with a thicker skin than when I was 19.
Okay, enough about this story, it has become a hijack. No more comments about it, please.
When I worked at McDonald’s, we called the chicken fajitas “chicken vaginas”, which was a fair approximation of how most customers pronounced it.
Moderator Note
Personal attacks are not permitted outside of the Pit. Attack the post, not the poster.
No warning issued but do not do this again.
I understand. That’s why I flagged my post.
That’s actually the standard pronunciation in British English.
Yeah, “bruschetta” is one that always ties me up. I know it’s “broo-sketta,” but most Americans, at least, know it as “broo-shetta.” I’ve once tripped up a server by pronouncing it “broo-skettuh” (or maybe I was corrected that it’s “broo-shetta”) so these days I tend to pronounce it as “broo-shetta” to a server unless I’m at a nicer Italian place or I’m talking to someone who appears to be Italian themselves. Or sometimes I just wave it off with “broo-shetta, broo-sketta, whatever you call it.”
I’m so old that people who have no idea how to properly pronounce foods in a foreign language no longer seem to be proper subjects of mockery to me. They’re just looking at a word they don’t know and using US norms of pronunciation to guess at it. BFD.
Oh, anything’s a proper subject of mockery to me!
I mean, wouldn’t you have to work at being so insulated that you’ve never heard any words of foreign derivation?
I mean, they’ve certainly heard ro-TISS-a-ree and tor-TEE-yahs (if nowhere else, at least on TV commercials). I don’t get it. Are they actively trying to forget any Unamerican Words?
Or… I just thought of this. They may be SO intellectually lazy and incurious about the world that they don’t care how anything is spelled or pronounced… (which is tragic).
Quoted for truth.
For whatever reason, I’m more forgiving of people who pronounce a word the way they think it should be pronounced based on the way it’s spelled, than of those who spell a word in some weird way based on how it’s pronounced.
I could say that I mispronounce “foreign” terms ironically, but that would be a lie. I usually do it to either 1) be “funny,” or B) annoy the waitron, other members of my dining party, or an entire culture. Depends on my mood. I’ll butcher any language except French this way. My French is a War Crime, no “irony” about it!
Back in the early-'80s (in my native California) I worked with a young woman who had recently moved from Iowa. She said she liked ‘tor-tilly-ahs’.