Basic Trope: Wacky terminology used in a (usually low-end) restaurant.
- Straight: Bob, the waiter at Charlie's Café, gets an order of two hot dogs with ketchup, a basket of onion rings, and a fried catfish with coleslaw on the side. He yells to Alice, the line cook, "Two tomato dogs, a basket of cryers, and a sandy gill with greasy cabbage on the side!"
- Exaggerated: Bob and Alice have slang for everything, from customers to common interjections, and it makes them incomprehensible to anyone visiting Charlie's Café.
- Downplayed: Bob, the waiter, gets an order of two hot dogs with ketchup, a basket of onion rings, and a fried catfish with coleslaw on the side. He calls to Alice, the cook, "Two tomato dogs, a basket of onion rings, and fried catfish with coleslaw!"
- Justified:
- Bob is The Nicknamer, and Alice finds it easier to go with it than to fight him.
- Bob is challenging the restaurant's cooking skills by having his order be based on obscure cooking lingos to see how competent of cooking the restaurant is.
- The lingo is easier to hear over the sound of the trains passing by on the tracks just east of the joint.
- The joint is for the locals and thus uses the local slang.
- Inverted: The customers order in elaborate slang, and Bob yells to Alice "A number six with extra dip!"
- Subverted: Bob gets the order from Straight and repeats it verbatim to Alice using the normal language.
- Double Subverted: She doesn't understand him, so he repeats it using the slang terms.
- Parodied: The simplest orders have slang so elaborate that Charlie's Café is closed for the night before Bob is done telling Alice that a customer wants the breakfast special.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob and Alice use personal slang for some but not all orders and/or at some times but not others.
- Averted: Bob and Alice use normal words for the items on the menu.
- Enforced:
- The author used to work at one of these places and put the slang in.
- A verbatim repeat would have made the scene exceed the time allotted to it.
- It's a simple way to explain some of the local slang, especially when it's done from the newcomer's perspective.
- Rule of Funny.
- Lampshaded:Eva: "Tomato dogs"? Why in the world doesn't the waiter just say, "hot dogs with ketchup"?
- Invoked:
- Alice and Bob co-own the business and they purposely make up wacky slang for the orders.
- Alice and Bob do not own the business; they're using these terms because Charlie wants them to.
- Exploited: Charlie's Café is an organized-crime front and Alice and Bob, enthusiastic participants, use odd phrases for orders as doublespeak related to misdeeds.
- Defied: Charlie forbids Alice and Bob to use slang terms for anything or anyone.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Dan, a first-time customer, overhears some of the lingo tossed around over what people seem to be ordering and mistakenly thinks that's actually what's on the menu. He's so disturbed by the "selection" that he leaves and vows never to eat there.
- Reconstructed: Dan's friend Frank eats at Charlie's regularly and explains what the weird orders actually meant. Once he learns the truth, Dan admits the lingo sounds kind of charming in context.
- Played for Laughs: Alice and Bob relay orders via hilarious jokes.
Hey Troper! One fict-lingo with plus-page sides!
