The totemic power of names

Following up on a recent theme, your host was standing in line at a Dairy Queen this afternoon, which turned out to be a great motivator for a post.

As background: while few people are as appreciative as SC of the Blizzard-making arts (especially the turning-it-upside-down part), he cannot quite bring himself to recite the tedious, long-winded names which are occasionally assigned to these things. This is not a fact peculiar to ordering at Dairy Queen; when at a Red Robin, SC does not say "I'd like a Whiskey River Barbeque Burger", but simply "I'd like a Barbeque Burger". At a Mimi's, SC does not say, "I'll have a J.B.'s 14 oz. Rib Eye", but "I'll have the Rib Eye". At more upscale places, where the name of an item is often practically the entire ingredient list, this is routinely understood and not a problem.

But there's something about names at Dairy Queen, which your host has observed at multiple locations, even though he can't recollect seeing it anywhere else. In the '80s, when they used to offer a "Chocolate-Covered Cherry Blizzard", he would ask for "a chocolate-cherry blizzard", and every single time, he would be corrected with, "Do you mean a Chocolate-Covered Cherry Blizzard?" SC would think, "No, Einstein, a cherry-covered chocolate blizzard! I prostrate myself in apology for failing to disambiguate the only thing on the menu I could possibly mean!", but with great restraint out would come, "Yes, one of those".

So today, while waiting for the train that constitutes the bulk of SC's daily commute, your host walked over to the DQ near the train station, only to discover that his old favorite had been resurrected as the "Choco Cherry Love Blizzard". Since SC's lack of humility is exceeded only by his lack of willpower, in he went. In the name of empirical science, he conducted the requisite experiment. "One small 'choco-cherry' Blizzard, please". And got the predicted response, "I'm sorry, do you mean a Choco Cherry Love Blizzard?" For just the briefest of moments, SC was tempted to reply, "No, I want a Choco Cherry Hate Blizzard", or maybe "No, a Choco Cherry Seething Fury Blizzard", but then the old conditioning overtook him, and out popped "Yes, one of those".

Your host suspects that this pet peeve is of a piece with Geoff Pullum's recent screed against mind-numblingly obvious statements printed with Capital Letters on junk mail. While precision in language is a fine and often necessary thing, there is something about excessive verbiage which is merely noxious, especially when the meaning conveyed by the excess is irrelevant (the name assigned by linguists to the assumption that most people can grasp the obvious is "pragmatics"). And yet at Dairy Queen, an insistance on uttering the entire incantation is the defining trait of the employees. Is there some sort of punishment for not saying the entire name? Does the training teach them that it is better to correct their customers' speech, no matter how well understood, than allow the marketers' carefully tested and focus-grouped names to wither? Or has SC just been on a singularly unlucky run of encounters with uptight people for the last 18 years (the length of his acquaintance with DQ)?

Comments

[Qov]

I think they receive indoctrination.

My obstinate non-conformity to fast food terminology consists of mapping the offered sizes to small, medium and large.

McDonald's sells three sizes of Chicken McNuggets, I think it's six, ten and twenty. I order 'the largest size'. I always have to clarify.

At the coffee place the sizes are in Italian. I don't speak Italian. I suppose I could learn, but they're supposed to be serving me. I order in English. They deal better than the McDonald's people.

[NW]

On the assumption that this is junk food and you don't really want any (pragmatically reasonable, I'd have thought), you could ask them, 'As opposed to what?', and be perplexed. If they repeat their name for it, you repeat yours after 'That's what I said'. Persist in bafflement and break down their defences.

[reuben]

"Choco cherry love blizzard"? Was this named in honour of Barry White? Bet it tastes great with a heaping platter of Chef's Salty Balls.

Re the countertop corrections, I suspect that chains such as DQ demand consistency - no, absolute conformity - from their staff. It's quite likely that if the pimply-faced assistant manager at your local DQ overhears the exhausted single mother of three who is serving you NOT saying the officially approved name of the product, she'll be reprimanded, or have her children thrown in the fryer. Higher up the food chain (ie in nicer restaurants), workers tend to have more autonomy.

SO while my instinct is always to be a smart ass in this situation, my pity for the shmucks behind the counter keeps me in line.

[language hat]

While I share reuben's sympathy for the workers (I try never to take my rage at corporate/bureaucratic nonsense out on the nearest hapless target), my sympathy would not extend to actually using the nauseating official names that have for some reason become universal. When I go to Starbuck's I ask for a "small coffee," and they give it to me without asking "do you by chance refer to the Super-Extra-Large-But-Not-As-Large-As-the-Superduperwhammo-Doublepluslarge?" If I got the kind of shit you're describing at any place of business, I would say (in your case) "I want a chocolate-cherry blizzard, and I have no desire to call it by some stupid corporate name. If you want to sell me one, fine; if you don't, I'll go elsewhere." I'd say it in the friendliest possible way, to make it clear I wasn't mad at them personally, but I would want any evil supervisors lurking in the background to know that I resented their little game and wasn't goiing to put up with it. If enough people did that, the policy might change.

Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"?

[wolfangel]

I like to order "the middle one", at coffee places. (The smallest and largest ones also work, but medium usually doesn't exist; when it does, it's the smallest one.) People understand.

In Quebec, I've found most (non-national chain) places have small and large, or small medium and large.

There's also a suggested question on a new citizenship exam:

Arrange in order, smallest to largest: jumbo, giant, extra large.

[Mary]

Boost Juice are often the same, although some take pity on you and don't require that you inform the entire shopping centre that you want a Berry Bang, thanks very much. But some do.

I assume it's a branding exercise of some kind.

[Eric]

Perhaps this Doonesbury sums up your feelings on this matter:

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20030720

[Ross]

I work in a customer service position, on the phone, and the reason I repeat things that seem obvious is two-fold:

I am supposed to. Those directly in charge of me want me to, and if I don't it will count against me when these things are kept track of.

Secondly, I deal with people's money, and I am responsible for errors I make. I repeat things that sound blastingly obvious, because if my recorded call is brought up in my defense, I want it to be just that; In my defense. I don't want it to point out that I, in fact, made a $15,000 error, that the company will not hate me for.

I doubt this is the same reason a retail food establishment would do this, but it may be a "follow the leader" sort of exchanged from a larger business to a retail store.

Just my two cents.

[Sara]

I'm in high school and I work at Dairy Queen. Just to clarify, a chocolate-cherry blizzard is a blizzard with chocolate ice cream and cherries. A chocolate-covered cherry blizzard is made with vanilla ice cream, cherries, and chocolate cone dip. They're two different things, so the server is just trying to make sure they prepare the right blizzard for you. They're just trying to do their jobs.

[Semantic Compositions]

Sara: I've never seen a chocolate-cherry Blizzard (as described in your comment) on the menu, although I wouldn't be surprised to hear that servers are trained to make a number of off-menu recipes that might be requested. Aside from that, I'm finding myself confused. When someone orders an Oreo Blizzard, are the cashiers trained to ask if they meant a Mint Oreo Blizzard? Ditto for Banana and Banana Split. In other words, if cashiers are told to assume that I mean what I say with some pairs of similar-sounding menu items, why not others?

[Sara]

If you ordered an item that's not on the menu, like a chocolate-cherry Blizzard or a banana Blizzard, I would think that you meant to order an item that's actually on the menu, and would clarify before I made the Blizzard and served it to you. A majority of DQ customers are total morons who can barely read, so on a number of occasions people have clearly ordered strawberry Blizzards (not on the menu), been served their Blizzards, and asked where the cheesecake is, thinking they ordered Strawberry Cheesecake Blizzards. The same goes for banana (not on the menu) and Banana Split Blizzards. It's not a part of training, it's something that's learned after you make a customer a dessert they ordered and then have to throw it away because they aren't a good reader. So no, if you were to order an Oreo Blizzard, I wouldn't ask if you meant to order another menu item. If you ordered something that's not on the menu, like a chocolate-cherry Blizzard, I would assume that you were another idiot and would clarify the order before I made it for you. And no, "absolute conformity" isn't demanded, and most of the "shmucks behind the counter" are just bored teenagers waiting to leave for college.

[Semantic Compositions]

I'm more sympathetic than you think regarding customers being morons -- elsewhere on this site, I've written about a DQ customer who asked for a Coke, and when asked "do you mean a diet Pepsi?", said "yes, a diet Coke". There are some valid linguistic reasons why someone might have produced that statement (which I covered in the post), but from the perspective of a cashier who goes through dozens of similar conversations in the course of a day, it must be extremely frustrating to hear such cluelessness. So your point that the communicative problems hardly run in one direction is well taken.

But if you're not being trained in off-menu recipes to deal with odd-sounding requests, then it's not clear to me that the sort of clarification that was originally discussed should be needed. As you showed with the strawberry cheesecake example (now you've gone and made me hungry, too!), customers got angry when not served the thing on the menu that was closest to what they said (assuming there's only one item on the menu that actually includes the word "strawberry"), rather than being happy that the literal meaning of their order was followed.

Having said all that, it's quite clear that whatever might be the case with other fast-food workers, you're definitely going to be ready for college!

[EFL Geek]

Yeah, I remember my days behind the counter at A&W and other service jobs. Customers are realy morons.

One job, I can't remember which, changed the popular phrase The customer is always right to The customer is not always right, but they are never wrong. Which wasn't still wasn't very helpful when deailing with morons.

[Amanda]

Okay...so Dairy Queen Blizzards...
Chocolate Cherry Love consists of cherries and chocolate chunks.
Chocolate covered cherry is cherries and cone dip.
If I were to have a customer ask for a chocolate cherry blizzard I would simply ask "Would you like chocolate chunks or cone dip?"

[morgan]

the reason people are corrected is because the Chocolate-Covered Cherry Blizzard is different than a chocolate-cherry blizzard.. but most peopel want the chocolate covered ones.. haha i know this because i am the one behind the counter asking people what they really want!!! haha