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November 3

When did "coffee" become a countable noun?

Recently I was heading to the cafeteria and asked a friend if he wanted anything to which he replied "Get me a coffee?". I have always heard "I'd like some coffee" or "How about a cup of coffee". "A coffee" grated on my ears like a mistake that a non-native English speaker might make. But since then, I've been noticing that usage among others in my social group here in Central California and today I heard "I'm going downstairs to get a coffee" on a TV sitcom, leading me to wonder since when is coffee a countable noun and how widespread is this usage. It seems to be used only among younger people (i.e. people of my children's generation), so maybe it's a generational phenomenon?--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 06:35, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't that usage more common among Brits? Also, if we say, "Get me a soft drink", then "Get me a coffee" would seem to be consistent (though I wouldn't say it that way). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:38, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seems unremarkable to me. A coffee, a beer, an orange juice, a whiskey — all usually mass nouns, but in context, they mean "one unit as sold by the establishment". --Trovatore (talk) 06:48, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's common in England, but I thought it was an Americanism. In any case, yes, as Trovatore says, it means 'one particular unit of [said drink]'. It is only used for liquids, and not other uncountable nouns like sugar or rice, or numbers of times the French have surrendered :). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:56, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Having said that "I will have two sugars" is perfectly normal, but once again referring to two units of sugar, which may be a teaspoon or a sugar cube. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:30, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"A coffee" has long been the standard usage down here too. Asking for "a cup of coffee" sounds a bit unnecessarily verbose and formal. However, "a tea" is not what people generally say, still preferring "a cuppa" or even "a cup of tea". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:59, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's true. "I'll have a tea, please" is possible up here, but normally we'd say "I'll have a cup of tea", whereas with coffee, we'd most often say "a coffee". KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:15, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed on "a tea", but I've quite often heard "two teas, please." Bazza (talk) 15:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It gets even worse than that: a small fries. It doesn't matter whether the noun is intrinsically countable or uncountable, or even plural. I believe this is because the word or phrase becomes the name of a discrete menu item, and orders of menu items are naturally countable. This is especially true in places like fast food restaurants or coffee shops where one person might order any number of units for a group or to go. I don't think it's all that recent a usage. The movie Blues Brothers played on the ambiguity in 1980 with "four fried chickens and a Coke." --Amble (talk) 17:08, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On a similar note, in Northern Ireland when we're buying hot food to take away and want a single portion of French fried potatoes, we ask for "a chip". Confuses people. --Nicknack009 (talk) 09:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When I was at infants' school (around 1960), we got free milk every day (this was before the milk snatcher, of course), that came in 1/3 pint glass bottles. I found it strange that people talked about these as "milks", but they certainly did so. --ColinFine (talk) 23:57, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We got ours in pyramid-shaped paper cartons which were ridiculously difficult to open and usually ended up with most of us drenched in milk, which, when dried, made our jumpers sticky. This was in the 70s, when Maggie was just starting up. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean a Tetra Pak? -- AnonMoos (talk)

Not sure - we couldn't actually read at the time (Don't forget, we were 3,4,5 years old, and remembering the name of the company that supplied the cartons with our milk in was not top of the list of our priorities). It certainly was pyramid shaped, so it might be that. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If it was tetrahedral in shape, it was probably a tetra-pak; if it was pyramidal like a pyramid in Egypt (four triangles and square base), then who knows. AnonMoos (talk)

At the risk of drawing this thread further off course, this 1971 BBC documentary shows children drinking from oblong boxes, although I'm sure KageTora's memory is correct. It was glass bottles in London up to 1970 at least. BTW, Mrs Thatcher only withdrew free milk from junior schools (7-11 year olds), it was retained for infants (4-7 year olds). Alansplodge (talk) 18:29, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was born in 1972, so it would be a little later than that. We never had glass bottles. They were probably too expensive for a lady like Maggie, who apparently came from a baker's family, and yet spoke like the queen. In any case, she messed up everything in the North West and turned it into a shite-hole, just because she didn't like scousers. Pity she is already dead, because I would delightfully kill her myself. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:24, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, yeah, blah, blah ... You had plenty of opportunity, but you wimped out. We don't need your cowardly kind around here whinging and moaning. The NK Kim dynasty could do with a little light killing, and they're not far away from you, so if you want to redeem yourself, on your bike, boyo-san. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:37, 4 November 2013 (UTC) [reply]

No mate, we redeem ourselves by owning the world and sending thieves on a lifetime holiday to sunny Oz. And in any case I was only a little boy at the time, and access to weapons, explosives, and terrorist units was usually limited to over-18s. Not my fault I was born so late. Just a pity it was us kids she targeted, with her milk thing. But if you want to be 'powerful'. you target the vulnerable majority. That's politics. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:41, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an example of "a Coke" from 1912: [1]

Q. Now, if a man comes in and calls for a Coca-Cola or for a "Dope" or for a "Coke," you understand, of course, he gets Coca-Cola?
A. Yes, sir.

And the slogan "How about a nice Hawaiian Punch?" has been around since 1964 [2]. --Amble (talk) 00:24, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In "Breaking Bad," a US TV series in the 21st century, in Season 3 Episode 7 in New Mexico Mrs. Shrader says to her husband, in their home "You want a coffee?" "You want a glass of orange juice?" My family would say "You want coffee?" or "You want a cup of coffee?" but never "You want a coffee?" as if it were "a beer." Edison (talk) 05:24, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

German numbers

In standard German, do numbers like "neunundachtzig" contain glottal stops ("neun[ʔ]und[ʔ]achtzig") as if the components were separate words? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 11:49, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We do have Commons:Category:German pronunciation of numbers, where "neunund[ʔ]achtzig" (so my guess) is wanting. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 13:10, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that link. It doesn't contain any "-undachtzig" forms, but the speaker doesn't seem to use any glottal stops before the "-undzwanzig" forms. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 16:30, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think perhaps the question reflects a misunderstanding of what a glottal stop is -- my understanding is that they generally only come after vowels. Anyway, a German would usually pronounce that as one word but could pronounce it as multiple words if making an effort to speak especially clearly -- there wouldn't be any sense of error in doing that. Looie496 (talk) 15:02, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's a characteristic of German that words with an initial vowel phoneme take a glottal stop even after consonants, and that this can occur between elements of a compound noun and after prefixes; see what Canepari writes here, for example (pages 192-193). But I'm asking whether this also applies within numbers. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 16:23, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

From a native speaker: you rarely hear the "d" in "neunundachtzig" unless you want to be very clear. It would sound like "neu-nun-nach-zig", so there are no breaks/glottal stops. Moreover, [d] becomes [t] at the end of a syllable, a very faint sound, so it's usually dropped. --2.245.134.165 (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At http://www.forvo.com/search/neunundachtzig/, I heard only one glottal stop, between the devoiced d and the a.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:23, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am a bit reluctant putting my own opinion here, for the glottal stop is used more in Northern Standard German than in Southern Standard German, and it is often a way to emphasize words or word boundaries. Words, however, are correctly pronounced with or without glottal stops, it is only a traditional style. I read that even in stage pronunciation it is no longer recommended. In "[ʔ]acht[ʔ]und[ʔ]achtzig" it can appear up to three times, whereas in "neunund[ʔ]achtzig" I would use it only once and only if the number is isolated or needs to be stressed, not in counting or in full years, where the numbers are typically slurred and not emphasized. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 02:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

They are separable into distinct words 'neunundachtzig' means nine-and-eighty. It makes sense in English for people may slur their words. Take the word 'twenty-eight', it's not unusual to hear it as 'twenyate' (with no glottal stop). Plasmic Physics (talk) 02:17, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]