Ok, I just posted about this in a different thread, and kind of got off topic. Even after venting about it in the McPeeves thread though I am still not through. Some background:
Often at the type of ‘fast’ food restaraunt where they have to call customer’s number’s through a microphone to tell them its time to come pick up their tray they will utter the stock phrase of: “Number 42, your order is ready please.”
Now please note this is in the midwest (I’ve seen it in St. Louis, Kansas City and Wichita) and none of the people involved are foreigners. They theoretically have been speaking english their entire lives.
Does this piss anyone else off? I for one, get mad as hell about it. Ok, not mad as hell. Its annoying though. As near as I can parse such a phrase, what they want is for me to please acknowledge that my order is ready. Its not really correct even in that sense though, I mean could you say:
“The boat is green, please”? If someone said “The boat is green, please” I would have to expect that they would want me to agree that the boat is indeed green. I would not expect that they would want me to go sailing in the boat. But at the restaraunt, they do! They say “Your order is ready please” and expect you to come pick it up! Some day I’m just going to stand and look at them until they speak to me in fucking english.
