"Let life enchant you again." - Fernando Gros
0 items in your cart
$0
Blog // Travel
April 19, 2009

A Regular Sized Parable

During our visit to Australia we got caught out a number times ordering “regular sized” foods and beverages. Turns out that in many parts of Sydney, regular means larger, or at least medium (which for coffee, can still be huge). Often we had to emphasise that we wanted a “small” sized drink. Returning to Hong […]

During our visit to Australia we got caught out a number times ordering “regular sized” foods and beverages. Turns out that in many parts of Sydney, regular means larger, or at least medium (which for coffee, can still be huge). Often we had to emphasise that we wanted a “small” sized drink.

Returning to Hong Kong we’ve been caught out twice asking for a “regular” and expecting a large, only to get a smaller sized portion (which may have been a blessing in disguise, especially in terms of pizza). It’s a strange kind of reverse/reverse culture shock (perhaps we could call it a recursive culture shock?).

Sometimes regular is rather irregular indeed.

Responses
Toni 15 years ago

Regular is one of those expressions that it meaningless, but seems to be used in the catering industry in place of the implication ‘stingy’. As in “ordering a regular makes you mean”. I also notice that one never gets any ‘special offers’ with regular portions: only with large and extra large.

Enter your and your to join the mailing list.