coffee and...

[Lynne Murphy]

>From "Doing the Frango" by Andrea Cooper in today's Salon.com:

[context:  shopping for school clothes at Marshall Field's]
When the pile of discards had grown as colorful and layered as a trifle,
Gramma was finally ready to pause. "Oh, honey, I'm exhausted," she
confessed. "Let's stop for 'coffee and.'" She meant milk and a snack for
me, coffee and a cigarette for her. (It took years before I realized the
expression "coffee and" is unique to Chicago.)


I've not heard the phrase 'coffee and', but I've only lived downstate in
Illinois.  Is this well-attributed?

The article's a nice bit of familiarity for those who've shopped at
Field's and gorged on Frango mints.

Lynne, a distant relative (by marriage) to Marshall Field


Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320