Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

tromboniator said
It has become rather common for servers to introduce themselves soon after the diners are seated. When they don't, I ask. If the restaurant is not too busy I may even introduce myself and my fellow diners to the server. I'd rather use a person's name wherever possible.

"Hi, my name if Jennifer.  Yew wun fries wid dat?"

It used to be fairly common in movies to make fun of hicks who have moved to the city and don't know how to conform to citified behavior patterns.  Think of the cowbot in "Bus Stop" pr "Pa Kettle".  They don't know how to summon a waiter in a restaurant, so thety may let out with a ferovious whistle, or dnap their fingers, or yell at them from across the dining room.  In a small town restaurant, of course, you could quietly summon the waitress from several tables away by calling her by name, "Joanie?  Joanie?" and she will nod acknowledgment immediately and stop by your table ASAP.  Of course, it's OK in a small town restaurant to go over to the pot and pour yourself another cup of coffee, or even grab another bottle of beer when the barkeep has his hands full.

In a bug city restaurant, of course, that's improper behavior.  You're just supposed to wait until she looks your way.  Sometimes, if another waitperson comes near, you can ask them to notify your waiter, but in general, one gives hostages to fortune when one marries, or when one enters a dining room.  Unless, of course, exigent circumstances intervene; for instance, if one collapses from hunger or thirst, or collapses from good poisoning, or has the good fortune to have a heart attack, then someone nearby is permitted to shriek (if female) or to ask, in a loud voice, "Somebody call an ambulance!" and quite possibly, one of the 53 people talking loudly into their cell phones will hang up and dial 9-1-1.

I started to wreite a novel once about an invisible man, whose image would be recorded by film, but nobody would ever *see* him.  My theory was that he learned how to use the mental telepathy we all have.  Twins often have their own private language, and it turns out that they aren't doing anything more than mumbling unger their breath, and the twin receives the information by mental telepathy.  And in the predawn hours when my oldest brother died in a wreck, my mother awoke, sat up in bed, and knew, somehow, that Dick was in great distress, and then, that he wasn't.  A couple of hours later, the sheriff came to the door, and even before he said a word, she said, "It's Dick, isn't it?  How did he die?" and Sheriff Keeler stood there slackjawed.  But in any case, the protagonist was *always* somewhat invisible; he figured that he had a face that "looked like it had akready been waited upon."  Turns out that he could do the "Move on, these aren't the droids you were looking for" trick simply by wanting it, and he would telepathically shrink to iris of abyone who was looking his direction. 

But in any case, just as "civil servants" have become not servant but master, and slaves perfected the passive-aggressive shuffling slow walk to waste their master's time without being uppity, waitstaff have learned to rebel against their supposed low status by making anyone demanding their services into a social pariah.  I read a book 10 or 20 years ago that pointed out that hospitallity has fairly rigid protocols, because extending hospitality is an aggressive act, obliging others to reciprocate or else be labeled a lout.

And whether or not they realized what they were doing, the writers of Mad Men were labeling this character as a terrorist in terms of common curtesy.  "Don't call me 'boy'" and "don't call me" aren't that far apart.

Hmmm.  I wonder if you could pull out your cell phone, call the restaurant, and tell them that person that the invisible person in the powder blue golf shirt needs to speak to his waiter.  On the other hand, do you *really* want to annoy a person who can spit in your food if he chooses to?