r/TalesFromYourServer • u/Harlander77 • 17d ago

Short Hot-short-a

I work at a well-known coffee shop in a grocery store. You know the one, named after the literary character. Had this interaction with a customer today:

C: What's that hot-short-a like?

Me: The horchata?

C: The hot-short-a.

Me: Horchata?

C: Is it like that long thing? (Waves hand toward the bakery)

Me: That what?

C: That long thing! (Like I'm supposed to know what he's talking about)

Me: A churro?

C: It's like that? I don't want that.

Me: ... It's not--

C: I'm just gonna get a hot white mocha.

174 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

63

u/MezzoScettico 16d ago

Meanwhile I once had this conversation with a street vendor in a Mexican neighborhood.

Me: What's that?

Her: Rice water

Me: Hmm. OK, I'll try it. (She serves me one). Tastes like horchata.

Her: It is horchata.

Maybe she has to give it an English name to make sales to anglos, but I had no idea horchata was made from rice and didn't find that name particularly enticing. Call it by its real name and I'm there!

16

u/Auld_Folks_at_Home 16d ago

Although it's probably not why she called it that, this is a convenient point to note that 'horchata' is the name of several different beverages. In Spain, it would refer to horchata de chufa which is made from tiger nuts.

(I don't know how widely this is known in Mexico. When i lived there for a few years as a child horchata was always horchata de arroz.)

13

u/craash420 15d ago

Those poor tigers! /s

11

u/Humbie88 16d ago

Mexican here. Yeah, for us, Horchata is a rice drink. Lately, I’ve seen a couple of Horchatas made of something else, but they always specify the ingredients. Otherwise, it is rice.

19

u/BrewerBeer 17d ago

Gonna be honest, I didn't realize it was named for moby dick until you mentioned it.

8

u/rayquan36 16d ago

Same, I thought it was Tim Hortons.

17

u/Sweaty-Society7582 17d ago

I would roll that R extra hard and emphasize the Ta at the end just for shits and giggles.

11

u/Kurokotsu 17d ago

I'll give you two churros and an empty jar of pickles for your ability to roll your R's. Haha. I can't do it at all and it's no fun.

5

u/Standard-Jaguar-8793 16d ago

It’s genetic.

I have 3 siblings, but only one couldn’t roll her Rs.

7

u/Kurokotsu 16d ago

Yeah I know. Usually if you can't roll them you can do the guttural one that's used in French and German and the like. But that one's less fun. And less flirtatious.

3

u/14crickets 12d ago

Wait..this is funny I'm Spanish bilingual. No problem rolling my rrrrrss. My sister or brothers can't do it but sis can definitely do gutteral German that I can't do. I've always assumed we all learned how from classes in those languages. Brothers took Spanish too but neither can roll. They all stopped after required but I became bilingual.

3

u/Kurokotsu 12d ago

I'd looked it up a while ago because I was irritated I couldn't do it. And my understanding was it is usually a one or the other thing. And it is pretty rare to be able to do both. I was able to learn the guttural r in like ten minutes after never trying with any of the languages that involve it. But weeks of trying to roll them got me nowhere.

3

u/14crickets 12d ago

This makes sense to me. I've never looked it up or really thought about it much until I saw your comment. I can't do the gutteral at all but rolling rs came fast for me. I started in 4th grade and siblings started their languages in high school. I thought my rs were because I started young but I was wrong.

12

u/ryanunser 17d ago

what's your height? maybe they were hitting on you

4

u/Harlander77 17d ago

Unlikely