‘Can I get a 1664, a Jerry and Coke and a white SoCo?’
Don’t worry if you’re a little confused, boys and girls, so was I. Despite sounding like something barked over the crash trolley of a hit-and-run victim on an episode of ER, the pin-headed dickwipe who had so woefully neglected his manners was actually demanding a pint of Kronenburg, a rum and coke and a Southern Comfort and Lemonade. I’d just started my summer job, and, horror of horrors, I’d found myself in politesse hell.
See, the other day I read I really, really scary story, and it didn’t have a happy ending. It was my bank statement. Weeks of unpaid work experience to boost my fledgling journalistic portfolio had left me with a balance that would have Little Nell throwing coppers into my begging bowl. So I bit the proverbial bullet and got myself a job. I thought that a bar job would be a glamorous, responsibility-free way to finance my summer, get the bank off my back and meet lots of trendy, fabulous new people. Instead, it appears to be an exercise in anger-management and code-breaking, peppered with cocks, cokeheads and braying, empty-headed money-wells armed only with smug slang and a distinct lack of English good manners.
Am I the only one who failed to notice drinks suddenly developing new, trendy nicknames? Without my knowledge or consent, they’ve become the alcoholic equivalent of J-Lo, P-Diddy and M-Dolla, and it makes a mockery of the entire bar service dynamic. You want speedy, efficient service? Then bloody ask for what you want! I don’t go into McDonalds and ask for a B-Macca, with P-chippies and a D-Coca, do I? Then why is it suddenly appropriate for you to ask for drinks in some sort of wankers’ code? Was there a committee? Some Berks’ Fellowship that decided that, given the bad press drinking alcohol has had of late, booze needed something of an image change? It’s not big, it’s not clever, and I don’t like it.
And what’s worse, this same Cocks’ Committee have decided, in their infinite wisdom, that these new, too-cool-for-school nicknames are so hip, so now, that they must be allowed to stand on their own in spoken sentences, unballasted by courtesy or politeness. It must have been around the time that Southern Comfort became SoCo that ‘may I have’ became ‘can I get’, and ‘please’ became ‘right fucking now’.
‘Can I get’ has oozed its way into the national voice in much the same way that ‘like’ has replaced ‘erm’, and what’s most ludicrous about it is that it doesn’t actually mean anything. The phrase turns me into a tooth-gnashing grammar-fascist because it is so bloody STUPID! ‘Can I get’ is contextually inaccurate when requesting something, as ‘can’ queries the ability to do something, and ‘get’ suggests the speaker actually getting something themselves. What these pseudo-American tossers are actually asking is if they have the physical ability to get themselves a drink. Quite possibly they can, but the service industry doesn’t work like that.
Don’t worry if you’re a little confused, boys and girls, so was I. Despite sounding like something barked over the crash trolley of a hit-and-run victim on an episode of ER, the pin-headed dickwipe who had so woefully neglected his manners was actually demanding a pint of Kronenburg, a rum and coke and a Southern Comfort and Lemonade. I’d just started my summer job, and, horror of horrors, I’d found myself in politesse hell.
See, the other day I read I really, really scary story, and it didn’t have a happy ending. It was my bank statement. Weeks of unpaid work experience to boost my fledgling journalistic portfolio had left me with a balance that would have Little Nell throwing coppers into my begging bowl. So I bit the proverbial bullet and got myself a job. I thought that a bar job would be a glamorous, responsibility-free way to finance my summer, get the bank off my back and meet lots of trendy, fabulous new people. Instead, it appears to be an exercise in anger-management and code-breaking, peppered with cocks, cokeheads and braying, empty-headed money-wells armed only with smug slang and a distinct lack of English good manners.
Am I the only one who failed to notice drinks suddenly developing new, trendy nicknames? Without my knowledge or consent, they’ve become the alcoholic equivalent of J-Lo, P-Diddy and M-Dolla, and it makes a mockery of the entire bar service dynamic. You want speedy, efficient service? Then bloody ask for what you want! I don’t go into McDonalds and ask for a B-Macca, with P-chippies and a D-Coca, do I? Then why is it suddenly appropriate for you to ask for drinks in some sort of wankers’ code? Was there a committee? Some Berks’ Fellowship that decided that, given the bad press drinking alcohol has had of late, booze needed something of an image change? It’s not big, it’s not clever, and I don’t like it.
And what’s worse, this same Cocks’ Committee have decided, in their infinite wisdom, that these new, too-cool-for-school nicknames are so hip, so now, that they must be allowed to stand on their own in spoken sentences, unballasted by courtesy or politeness. It must have been around the time that Southern Comfort became SoCo that ‘may I have’ became ‘can I get’, and ‘please’ became ‘right fucking now’.
‘Can I get’ has oozed its way into the national voice in much the same way that ‘like’ has replaced ‘erm’, and what’s most ludicrous about it is that it doesn’t actually mean anything. The phrase turns me into a tooth-gnashing grammar-fascist because it is so bloody STUPID! ‘Can I get’ is contextually inaccurate when requesting something, as ‘can’ queries the ability to do something, and ‘get’ suggests the speaker actually getting something themselves. What these pseudo-American tossers are actually asking is if they have the physical ability to get themselves a drink. Quite possibly they can, but the service industry doesn’t work like that.
It’s easy to blame American TV for this dissolution of good manners; Friends introduced us to the notion of going for coffee in much the same way as it introduced us to the act of demanding it rudely. The difference with American and British manners, however, is that American courtesy doesn’t depend on the pleasantries, it depends on the pleasantness; the logic being that you don’t have to say please if you ask for something nicely. In London, we’ve seen the bastardisation of this concept; you don’t have to say please if you ask for something. Full stop. And it’s an idea that doesn’t hold with me: My mum is a big advocate for manners. Saying please and thank-you in so ingrained on my psyche that it is almost an involuntary nervous tic, like saying sorry to inanimate objects you bump into by mistake or to people who have stepped on your foot. She’s always in the back of my mind when I deal with people whose job it is to provide me with a service. I ask myself, what would she think if I spoke to someone like that in front of her. Or worse, what would I think if someone spoke to her like it?
After all, ‘Britishness’, for whatever the term is worth, is built on manners. A stiff upper lip and an pre-programmed inability to be rude. ‘Politeness at any cost’ is a dying concept, and I for one will mourn it.
If we’re going to assimilate American service culture into our own, then fair enough. I don’t like it, but I’m just one man, campaigning for pleases and thank-yous as politely and unintrusively as I possibly can. But if this trend for pseudo-rudeness is to continue, then could we at least take on the whole shebang – including the American propensity for tipping? At least then when you speak to me like I'm a piece of sticky chewing gum on the sole of your summer flip-flop, I know at least I’ll be getting 10% for the privilege.
So please, London, can I get some manners, right fucking now? Thanks. Sorry. Thanks…
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