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Rosenbaum spends three amusing pages shredding Fish's article, examining the many, many instances of "unintentional humor" and "comic cluelessness." And he pegs early on one of the shopworn observations Fish attempts to pass off as insight. As Fish notes:
First you have to get in line, and you may have one or two people in front of you who are ordering a drink with more parts than an internal combustion engine, something about "double shot," "skinny," "breve," "grande," "au lait" and a lot of other words that never pass my lips.That's right: Starbucks' menu is sooooo confusing. Tall is small, venti is large, grande is medium, black is white, and off we go through the looking glass here, people.
This got us thinking. The befuddling nature of Starbucks lingo became a hoary old cliche long ago. But who's the anonymous popularizer who first made wry observational humor of coffeehouse slang?
In short, who do we have to blame for the endless series of columns, blog posts, and would-be comedy routines noting that Starbucks names its sizes funny?
Starbucks Gossip pegged this as a cliche early in its life, and in August 2006 begged "Please, journalists, no more columns about Starbucks' drink sizes!"
Perhaps we could blame Dave Barry. (That's always fun.) But though he did a Mr. Language Person column addressing the Starbucks naming pandemonium, it was back in October 2004. Not early enough.
We begin with a disturbing escalation in the trend of coffee retailers giving stupid names to cup sizes. As you know, this trend began several years ago when Starbucks decided to call its cup sizes "Tall" (meaning "not tall," or "small"), "Grande" (meaning "medium") and "Venti" (meaning, for all we know, "weasel snot"). Unfortunately, we consumers, like moron sheep, started actually USING these names. Why? If Starbucks decided to call its toilets "AquaSwooshies," would we go along with THAT? Yes! Baaa!Some blogger named Lane Strauss has Barry beat. He wrote a skit, starring himself and a pierced barista he dubs "Tongue Girl," and posted it way back in January of '02.
TONGUE GIRL: Would you like a tall, a grande or a venti?We're not giving Strauss credit for this meme, either. It's got to be more than 5 years old. As commenter Alex Gordon noted on Starbucks Gossip, in conjunction with another column published earlier this year, "Seriously, a rant about how silly tall, grande and venti are? Ummm, 1995 is calling, it wants its column idea back."ME:
Vini, vidi, vici?TONGUE GIRL:
Tall, grande or venti?ME:
You're looking at me like I'm supposed to know what you're saying.TONGUE GIRL:
Here at Starbucks, a tall is a small.ME:
I do not want green eggs and ham.TONGUE:
The grande is our medium-sized drink. And the venti is our large, 20-ounce drink.ME:
So the tall -- which sounds big -- is actually small. The grande -- which sounds grand -- is bigger than the tall but not quite the biggest. And the venti, which doesn't sound tall or grand, is actually the tallest and grandest of them all. Do I have that right?TONGUE GIRL:
That's correct. Venti is our largest cup of coffee, sir.ME:
You have to admit this is a little confusing.TONGUE GIRL:
Not at all, sir. Tall, grande, venti.
Does 7-Eleven get this much crap about its fountain sizes -- Gulp, Big Gulp, Super Big Gulp, and Double Gulp? "Double Gulp is large! But Big Gulp is smallish! Help!!" We think not.
Of course, in the right hands cliches can be dusted off and made amusing again. They Might Be Giants and ad agency Hill|Holliday spun a fairly amusing Dunkin' Donuts commercial out of the Starbucks language crisis. (And the Seattle Times posted a gleeful response, a glossary of terms any self-respecting coffee fan could use to become an aficionado.)
We're pinning the blame -- or at least the inspiration -- on another, more famous name. When Seattlest Seth read Rosenbaum's article, he said to us "According to my pocket schedule of late-to-the-party writers who live by their reputation only, we've got only three years until Steve Martin writes a Starbucks-related comedy piece for Talk of the Town."
If he does, he'll have come full circle. Remember 1991's L.A. Story? Released before Starbucks became famous (and when Sarah Jessica Parker had breasts worth fondling and commenting on), it includes this IMDB-quoted coffee exchange in a restaurant:
Tom: I'll have a decaf coffee.No, it's not about SBUX. No, it has nothing to do with sizes. But it's the first pop cultural moment we can remember in which the admittedly amusing nature of coffee shop lingo received a public ribbing.
Trudi: I'll have a decaf espresso.
Morris Frost: I'll have a double decaf cappuccino.
Ted: Give me decaffeinated coffee ice cream.
Harris: I'll have a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon.
Trudi: I'll have a twist of lemon.
Tom: I'll have a twist of lemon.
Morris Frost: I'll have a twist of lemon.
Cynthia: I'll have a twist of lemon.
Can anyone trace the meme back further--or fill in important gaps in the evolution of the Starbucks joke? Let us know.
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Once you realize that Starbucks offers an 8 oz. size (short), all of the harping about the nonsensical naming of the 12 oz. tall is made all the more nonsensical.
I don't have the patience to sort through all of the articles about Starbucks mentioning their sizing, but the intricacies of ordering were press fodder as early as 1995. Here's Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, who attended a training and mused on the cup-managing lingo at Starbucks in a 29 January column:
(SUNDAY MAGAZINE, Chicago Tribune: Jan 29, 1995. pg. 12)
Ooh, good find. "1995 is calling" indeed.
It actually dates back to Shakespeare's lost folio of "Cardenio":
ALONSO:
I prithee, sir, to mark the countenance of brew.
BARISTA:
The shadow of what's tall is yet cast short,
For in our commerce, names belie their shape
And taunt thy parched inquires with more steam
Than substance, harvested from humble beans
And churned into elixir for thy tongue,
For what of late is venti, ventilate
Thy troubled humours, galloping apace
Or swimming forth, a mermaid bare and swift
Ere modesty hath corseted her grace.
ALONSO:
Five ducats! 'Tis more costly than I wish!
(Exit Alonso, followed by a bear, followed by an eagle, followed by a walking fish.)