Tall Tale

Change never happens with an iota of the circumstance you imagine. There is no music, no fireworks, and very often, no feelings. You notice only how much you're not noticing, the collective sound of the world keeping on keeping on, not caring, silent like a big cosmic Buddha.

I erased the chalkboard today. Not all of it, mind you, not even most. But some. And I even made changes, rather than simply giving a fresh coat to the old words. 

I changed "dopio" to "doppio" fixing the misspelling that had been a running joke for years. Similarly, "con panne" was corrected to "con panna". The manager that had written the menu originally did not speak Italian, clearly, and had not bothered to check the spellings. The result was occasionally a stern correction, but more often it was simple jest. But it's fixed now, if for no other reason than I hate looking quite that dumb. 

But that was minor, small errors on a small section of the menu most people never look at. The sizes were bigger - excuse me, grande. We, like so many others, aped Starbucks (which was aping some imagined Italian ideal) in our cup-size names: Tall, Grande, and Venti. People made the usual jokes, asked the usual questions, and wondered sometimes why we didn't give the usual corrections. We allowed orders to be small, even encouraged it. Now the chalkboard does too. Finally - and I only wonder why not sooner - we've lost that linguistic albatross, and taken the intuitive approach. 

A new era!

No one noticed; or at least, no one mentioned noticing. The same things happened, with the same people, and it all felt like a favorite sitcom episode, making drinks where everyone knows your name, and you're oh so glad they came. It was as cozy as some imaginary pie cooling on the family quilt in a window next to a crackling fire, only more so, because it was real, and espresso is better than pie. 

The imagined occasion felt a momentous millisecond, and it was all gone, totally and beautifully irrelevant forever. You can change the words, but a coffee by any other name still tastes as sweet.

So how is tall small again?

I haven't seen Role Models, the movie from which this clip is taken, but I feel pretty confident in saying that I've just posted the 

best part. Comedy works best when it's relatable. Thus that scene works because Paul Rudd (KU grad, by the way) is 

expressing a frustration held by many.

And for what it's worth, he just so happens to be right. Tall means, well, it's English; I think you can figure that one out. 

Grande is spanish for large, or big, or something like that. And venti is just the Italian word for 20.

Great. But why? Because Starbucks is modeled after Howard Shultz's vision of a European coffee house, thus he sought 

to invoke the sorts of names one might find there. Which wouldn't be quite so complicated, if American's didn't like their 

food and beverages so large. In europe, one might order a coffee or cappuccino in a 6-8 oz serving. That would be the 

norm, in fact. Starbucks does have an 8 oz cup, which they call a short. You have to ask, but I recommend

doing so, if you value flavor over quantity.

Thus if there's a short, albeit hidden, the next step up is a tall. Again, in Europe, a 12 oz beverage would be fairly

substantial. And a grande, which is 16 oz, would be pretty huge. No one would ever dream of ordering a 20 oz coffee, so 

there was no appropriate European name to borrow for the venti.

Now that all kind of makes sense, until you glance over at the iced drinks. Starbucks' largest iced cup size is 24 oz, yet 

is still called a venti. Thus in Starbucks land, are we to assume that venti just means large, and not 20?

Frankly, I don't know. And I don't care either. I'e never actually met a barista who insists that you order a drink 

with the shop's exact lingo. But if you want to blend in, just read the menu board. My personal preference, and what

I think is easiest, is just to order drinks using numbers instead of names. Small can be confused, whereas 8 oz is 8 oz is 8 oz.