Cafe et un mocha hazelnut biscotti, please.
On the way home from work[1] today, I stopped to get a coffee (and, as it turned out, biscotti). Mmm, two shots of espresso.
I ordered my coffee and biscotti in French, since she asked me what I wanted in French. But then while the coffee was being made, she asked which biscotti (I don’t like it as a singular, but I don’t like it more — less? — than all the other options) I wanted. In English.
It is clear to anyone that French is not my first language (and English not hers). I can’t, however, decide if I’m offended or pleased about this. There have been, in the past, good reasons to be one or the other. It was a big deal.
Now I wonder if I’m just politicising something that’s lost all political content, and she was just trying to be helpful. Since the word for “hazelnut”[2] had entirely slipped my mind when she asked, I suppose I’d've answered in English anyways, but I was still startled by the change of language.
[1] Yay, a job! I’m figuring it will (a) take all semester and (b) get me around $6000 (before taxes, Canadian, although did you hear? 11 year high). Also, there’s a non-negligable chance I will get a really neat sounding summer job from this.
[2] Noisette. I don’t know how I forgot that, since it’s my favourite. Why can’t I get chocolate-hazelnut biscotti in the States? Chocolate almond is a poor cousin at best.