o1mnikent

“The general principle I work with is this: given the constraints of genre, audience, occasion, and purpose, I try not to let the stylistic, grammatical, and lexical choices call undue attention to themselves, unless that is the point of making that choice.”

-James VandenBosch, on ending sentences with prepositions (from Inflections)

I tasted my first latte in 1992, when my mom offered me a sip of hers. Since then, I’ve been hooked. I remember back in the 90s when anyone could walk into a Starbucks and choose one of three drink sizes: ’short’, ‘medium’, and ‘tall’. Sometime in the last decade, however, the drinks have grown larger and been relabeled ‘tall’, ‘grande’, and ‘venti’. Odd? Kinda. Whatever happened to these smaller, more primitive drink sizes that have been gobbled up by our (American?) quest for bigger, larger, and quicker? Perhaps this is just unwarranted nostalgia on my part?

Mark Liberman answers my not-so-rhetorical questions over at Language Log in his article, Latte Lingo: Raising a Pint at Starbucks. It turns out that ‘venti’ is actually a pitifully small quanity, that I should never have to say “grande supremo” unless I’m addressing a tribal warlord, and that, much to my shagrin, my request this past Friday evening at the new Starbucks on 28th street for a short drip coffee was met with confused looks, snickers, and even mild persecution.

So I opted for a tall.

In case you haven’t seen it (or participated) already, allow me to direct you to a much-needed conversation about preaching on Mary’s blog…