All projects: Gel, Jobs, Gootodo, Games, Uncle Mark, Goovite, Blog, Bit Literacy
NYT on "restaurantspeak"
NYT's Frank Bruni on "restaurantspeak," an unnecessary addition to the dining experience:
I pause halfway through an entree, and a server with an itch to clear plates asks if I’m “done enjoying that,” a question that’s more a presumption. Maybe I was done enjoying it after the first bite. Maybe the unconsumed half is a testament to my limited enjoyment.
Would I “enjoy coffee with dessert?” I don’t know; it depends how good the coffee is. I’ll have some, yes, then we’ll see.
Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Egads. It’s a semantic pox, either getting worse by the moment or simply less bearable upon the thousandth exposure to it. And it’s a fine example of restaurantspeak, an oddly stilted language that has somehow survived the shift toward casual dining and that sounds even odder and more stilted in light of the new informality.
"Enjoy" is also a prime piece of corporate-PR-ese, these days. You hear it a lot when media companies are talking about how their latest hideous copy-control DRM scheme is only there to make customers happier.
"Enjoy" is also often deployed in close proximity to its elder brother in PR bulldust, "enhance". It was actually very difficult for me to write that last paragraph without using "enhance", so ingrained has it become in the patter of people who'd be better off dead.
"Enjoy!" also comes as a command, when the plate is put before me, equivalent to "Eat!"
And how about the last phrase of the meal, or any shopping experience: "If you would sign this..." Well, if I would, then what? And if I wouldn't? What's wrong with "Please sign this"?
Why is enjoyment of the meal a command, while paying for it is a hypothetical plea?
I think there is supposed to be a comma in "If you would, sign this." Then it's a little clearer that the first part is just polite dressing. Many people seem to say it all together as a single question, though. They're too lazy to add "please" and without it, the pause makes the request "sign this" sound like a command. I think the phrase should be "Please sign this, if you would."
I have a grammar question; I grew up in the Midwest and I would often hear servers ask me, "How is that tasting?" Is this just local to the Midwest? Is this incorrect grammar? In this usage, "taste" doesn't seem like an action verb and it doesn't sound right to me in present continuous form. It makes me picture the food continuously emitting intangible taste waves or something.
I enjoyed this piece; I simply refuse not to. Cheers!
This is the problem though. Servers, hate it, new people have to learn it, and customers find it irritating. So why do they do it? because some people never learn so they get promoted. Management usually insists that their employees talk like this to "enhance" the experience for the customer. I don't get it and I never will.
I actually find it refreshing when we start using newer words in place of those that are already being used too often. For example, I was actually getting irritated every time I read a sentence a while back suggesting that we "delight" the customer.
My definition of being "delighted" often had nothing to do with working or learning how to use complicated products.
Anyway, I hope that you "enjoy" my perspective on this topic.