Poor man's latte / ghetto latte

[Benjamin Barrett]

Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Poor man's latte / ghetto latte
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Dec 4, 2007 2:13 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>> The earliest Webcite I can find for "poor man's latte" is Mar 13, 2006
>> (http://dc.metblogs.com/archives/2006/03/costco_the_land_1.phtml) by
>> narni therese: "my favorite is the "poor man's latte" where a customer
>> makes their own iced latte using milk from the condiment bar."
>>
>> The next hit I see is Aug 14 2006
>> (http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/_/2006/08/a_seemingly_min.html) by
>> CuteBarista!: "(we have at least one person per morning that comes up to
>> the counter and demands a free cup of coffee, not to mention the poor
>> man's latte folks, etc), we would be losing serious money."
>>
>> Around September 2006, both "ghetto latte" and "poor man's latte" seem
>> to have hit currency in the press, though the comment from CuteBarista!
>> indicates the word was commonly known by then. Probably some earlier
>> hits for people with access to newspaper archives.
>>
>
> Some earlier discussion of "ghetto latte" on the Usenet newsgroup
> alt.coffee from Jan. 2006 (in a thread featuring our own Alice Faber):
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.coffee/browse_frm/thread/9018dd901f8a70fb/f7909ae26e5b24e5
>
> Another term in use is "bootleg latte".
>

Thank you for the correction on that. I wasn't actually looking at
ghetto latte, and shouldn't have indicated that I was. BB

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