How do you like your Coffee? Language and Communication in Britain

I was reminded this week of those heady days when coffee shops became ubiquitous and you had to learn the language, or be treated with disdain by the Barista. No longer could you simply ask for coffee; it was americano; you had to know the fashionable coffee of the day; right now that is a flat white or a cortado. Years back, you could get a tall, wet, one-shot latte from Starbucks and I make a point of asking for that when I am visiting my old favourite in Bournemouth, although they have closed it down in Bath now. I used to use the upstairs as a meeting place to at Christmas. Venues can become like second homes when you visit them regularly. You notice when they change the seating.

Nowadays, they are more patient with me when I ask for ‘tall’ when I mean ‘small’ because I have been visiting another city and a different coffee shop. In Starbucks you get your coffee tall and grande, whereas it is large and small in Coffee 1, and simply small, medium or large in Costa.

What got me thinking about this was Greggs. A place I wouldn’t set foot in if it wasn’t for the free ‘breakfast role’ which I pick up on Fridays for a friend because it is full of unhealthy food and too bright, in my opinion. I was in there yesterday and could not make the assistant understand me. The reason. She calls the ‘breakfast role’ a ‘sausage bap’. The same thing happened to my friend in Greggs this morning with a completely different assistant who said the same thing, so I know it isn’t my accent. Anyway, although my partner and I laugh at the way we pronounce ‘Bath’ differently. He shortens the vowel and I lengthen it, we both pronounce sausage exactly the same. I wonder why that is. I suspect there is another story in that observation.