Dear Miss Manners: When you treat someone to a cup of coffee

[lilysea]

Dear Miss Manners: When you treat someone to a cup of coffee at an expensive coffee shop, should they choose a smaller size?

Answer: Ah, but which is the smaller size? In today’s cutesy coffee shops, it is unlikely to be called “piccolo.’’
“Order from the middle of the menu,’’ nice ladies were taught, back when gentlemen always paid the bills. But Miss Manners realizes that this would be challenging in a shop that uses pseudo-Italian nomenclature, or where “jumbo’’ might be the most modest choice.

She suggests that a frugal host order preemptively by saying, “We’ll have two mezzos’’ (or whatever they are called), and then graciously inquiring of the guest, “How do you take yours?’’

Comments

[redbird]

In terms of price, that's missing the point that an extra-large drip coffee or cup of tea might cost significantly less than small or medium of one of those complicated milk-and-coffee drinks. And even if someone is treating me, I might want a smaller drink than they're offering.

Cutesy names aside, I've taken to asking for a twelve, eight, or sixteen ounce cup of whatever, because even the simple English names aren't standardized. If I ask for a "small" or "regular" at Tea Luxe, they give me sixteen ounces; half a mile away, at Darwin's, "small" still means eight ounces, and sixteen ounces is a large.