noncents

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/31/2007 02:41 PM, Charles Doyle wrote:
>The implication of the centless-dollar prices listed on the menu is
>that anybody who has to worry about a few cents here and there
>shouldn't be eating at such a restaurant? Or that anyone who could
>be deceived into thinking that $24.95 for an entree is significantly
>cheaper than $25 is too stupid or too penurious to deserve eating there?

Well, Arnold was writing about Palo Alto, home of dot-coms and Stanford ...

Joel

>--Charlie
>____________________________________________________________
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:25:54 -0700
> >From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>
> >
> >On Oct 31, 2007, at 10:52 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >
> >> At 10/31/2007 01:11 PM, James A. Landau wrote:
> >>> All prices on the menu are in dollars with no decimal point, e.g.
> >>>     Egg Drop Soup.............2
> >>>     Hot and Sour Soup........3
> >>>     Egg Roll......................2
> >>>     Sweet and Sour Pork.....9
> >>>     Moo Shu Pork..............9
> >>>     Beef with Broccoli........10
> >>>     Sauteed Steak Kew......15
> >>>
> >>> These prices seem a little high to me, and I don't know if it's
> >>> because
> >>> they are in unit dollars and I would be more comfortable with Egg
> >>> Drop
> >>> Soup for $1.50 and Moo Shu Pork for $8.95
> >>>
> >>> Has anyone else seen this phenomenon of not using traditional dollars
> >>> and cents?  Is this the beginning of a new trend?
> >>
> >> I vaguely recall seeing this once or perhaps twice, but in
> >> restaurants where the soup might have been 5 and the pork 25 (some
> >> time ago) -- that is, in an upscale (meaning intending classiness but
> >> achieving perhaps only high-priciness) restaurant.
> >
> >palo alto has a pile of upscale restaurants, and a fair number of
> them have prices listed in whole dollars.  one (the California
> Cafe) seems to have everything in quarters (7.00, 7.25, 7.50, 7.75,
> 8.00). a few are really into that annoying X.95 thing.
> >
> >> IIRC, I've never
> >> seen just dimes after the decimal point.
> >
> >i don't recall seeing that either.
> >
> >arnold
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org