4 ms·

I was being hyperbolic -- we did eat quite a bit of soup because it was cheap, but we ate other things also. I didn't mean for the word largely to be taken lite

by nkohari 11y ago

I was being hyperbolic -- we did eat quite a bit of soup because it was cheap, but we ate other things also. I didn't mean for the word largely to be taken literally.

logfromblammo 11y ago
It evokes images of Charlie Chaplin eating boiled-shoe soup, or Charlie Bucket's entire family eating thin cabbage soup (and just one Wonka bar per year). Eating hot dogs, bologna, mac and cheese, and peanut butter sandwiches doesn't quite do it, because people eat those things occasionally, even when they can afford not to. But if you cut up that one hot dog and use it to make hot dog soup, you're now signaling that you're far too frugal for a second hot dog, a bun, or even mustard. But you're still not pinching that penny so hard that you just eat the hot dog, unheated and unaccompanied. Soup says "poor, but still trying hard, because it is only temporary". ~ Either that, or it says "following a fad diet based on the idea that people who eat mostly soup are not fat". ~
- pyre 11y ago
  The post states that soup is easy to make in large batches. This is true. Cut up some stuff toss it in a pot with some water, and turn on the stove (for the most part). You're just limited by the size of the pot, and the mechanisms you have for storing the soup. I think it's rather hyperbolic to have some strong association between the word "soup" and cultural icons like "stone soup" stories.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    Here's a thought experiment for you. Collect one copy of every restaurant menu written in English. Scan each menu to find food items that are primarily liquid in character. Note the word used to describe it, and the price of the item. Find the median list price for each word. In your thought experiment, does the median price of a "soup" differ significantly from the median prices of "bisque", "stew", "chowder", "broth", "cream", "potage", or specifically named soups like "bouillabaisse", "gazpacho", "chili", or "pho"? My hypothesis is that higher-end restaurants purposefully substitute "soup" with synonymous words to avoid the intrinsic association with frugality, and this practice lowers the observed median price of a "soup". It would be for the same reason that some restaurants don't put $ or numbers with two decimal places anywhere on the menu. It's a psychological trick to prevent you from entering "cost-benefit evaluation mode" before ordering your meal, so you spend more. Compare the following to your own anecdotal restaurant experiences: - Crab Bisque ..... -9- - crab soup: bowl $4.00, cup $2.50
    - pyre 11y ago
      > pho So when you order pho at a restaurant they have purposely named it pho instead of soup in an attempt to sound more "high class?" I'm sorry, but this seems like an extreme view. Most of those words exist to describe something specific. Do you expect to see "A bunch of vegetables cooked in water" or "vegetable soup" on the menu? Is the later an attempt to charge you more? Take gazpacho as another example. It's a specific type of soup. You can't complain about this anymore than complaining that the menu says "vegetable soup" instead of just "soup." They have to describe the food adequately to you so that you know what you're getting.
      - logfromblammo 11y ago
        No, I'm saying that when a chain restaurant with a psychologist on staff drafts the new menus, they will look at the entry for "Pho - Vietnamese rice noodle soup", and edit it to say "Pho - Vietnamese rice noodles in beef broth" instead. "Normal" restaurants don't know all the tricks to get customers to spend more money, but businesses for whom that marginal 1% of revenues is significant will absolutely pick over their menus looking for loaded words and design tweaks. If you have ever seen a smiley face on your receipt, that is a psych trick. It is experimentally proven to increase tips for female servers in midscale casual dining restaurants. Squat, smile, mimic. Push appetizers, booze, and desserts. Say you enjoy a dish yourself. Touch customers on the shoulder. Tell a joke. Pose a brainteaser. If a server does any of those things to you, they may have done their tip-boosting research. Menu tweaks are pretty simple, actually: - put cheaper, high-margin items near the most expensive thing on your menu - create seasonal specials - introduce new menu items as specials, sides, or appetizers rather than as an entree - draw boxes around the popular items, or highlight them in some way - carefully match descriptive tone with the desired clientele - destroy all currency symbols - suggest beverage pairings with the entree listing - make high-margin items more discoverable - chunk your menu into graspable categories; a giant pile of items should form a tree rather than a flat list - make the most expensive thing on your menu more expensive The word "soup" is a psychologically loaded word. You should only be using it on your menus if your overall marketing strategy is to attract value-based consumers.
brandonmenc 11y ago
It's impossible to exaggerate for effect, even slightly, on HN. Otherwise, you end up talking about soup for half the thread.
- nandemo 11y ago
  Impossible? What if I find 1 or 2 HN threads (among the tens of thousands that exist) that are a counter-example to your sweeping, extraordinary claim?

by nkohari 11y ago

I was being hyperbolic -- we did eat quite a bit of soup because it was cheap, but we ate other things also. I didn't mean for the word largely to be taken literally.

logfromblammo 11y ago

It evokes images of Charlie Chaplin eating boiled-shoe soup, or Charlie Bucket's entire family eating thin cabbage soup (and just one Wonka bar per year). Eating hot dogs, bologna, mac and cheese, and peanut butter sandwiches doesn't quite do it, because people eat those things occasionally, even when they can afford not to. But if you cut up that one hot dog and use it to make hot dog soup, you're now signaling that you're far too frugal for a second hot dog, a bun, or even mustard. But you're still not pinching that penny so hard that you just eat the hot dog, unheated and unaccompanied. Soup says "poor, but still trying hard, because it is only temporary". ~ Either that, or it says "following a fad diet based on the idea that people who eat mostly soup are not fat". ~

pyre 11y ago
The post states that soup is easy to make in large batches. This is true. Cut up some stuff toss it in a pot with some water, and turn on the stove (for the most part). You're just limited by the size of the pot, and the mechanisms you have for storing the soup. I think it's rather hyperbolic to have some strong association between the word "soup" and cultural icons like "stone soup" stories.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Here's a thought experiment for you. Collect one copy of every restaurant menu written in English. Scan each menu to find food items that are primarily liquid in character. Note the word used to describe it, and the price of the item. Find the median list price for each word. In your thought experiment, does the median price of a "soup" differ significantly from the median prices of "bisque", "stew", "chowder", "broth", "cream", "potage", or specifically named soups like "bouillabaisse", "gazpacho", "chili", or "pho"? My hypothesis is that higher-end restaurants purposefully substitute "soup" with synonymous words to avoid the intrinsic association with frugality, and this practice lowers the observed median price of a "soup". It would be for the same reason that some restaurants don't put $ or numbers with two decimal places anywhere on the menu. It's a psychological trick to prevent you from entering "cost-benefit evaluation mode" before ordering your meal, so you spend more. Compare the following to your own anecdotal restaurant experiences: - Crab Bisque ..... -9- - crab soup: bowl $4.00, cup $2.50
  - pyre 11y ago
    > pho So when you order pho at a restaurant they have purposely named it pho instead of soup in an attempt to sound more "high class?" I'm sorry, but this seems like an extreme view. Most of those words exist to describe something specific. Do you expect to see "A bunch of vegetables cooked in water" or "vegetable soup" on the menu? Is the later an attempt to charge you more? Take gazpacho as another example. It's a specific type of soup. You can't complain about this anymore than complaining that the menu says "vegetable soup" instead of just "soup." They have to describe the food adequately to you so that you know what you're getting.
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      No, I'm saying that when a chain restaurant with a psychologist on staff drafts the new menus, they will look at the entry for "Pho - Vietnamese rice noodle soup", and edit it to say "Pho - Vietnamese rice noodles in beef broth" instead. "Normal" restaurants don't know all the tricks to get customers to spend more money, but businesses for whom that marginal 1% of revenues is significant will absolutely pick over their menus looking for loaded words and design tweaks. If you have ever seen a smiley face on your receipt, that is a psych trick. It is experimentally proven to increase tips for female servers in midscale casual dining restaurants. Squat, smile, mimic. Push appetizers, booze, and desserts. Say you enjoy a dish yourself. Touch customers on the shoulder. Tell a joke. Pose a brainteaser. If a server does any of those things to you, they may have done their tip-boosting research. Menu tweaks are pretty simple, actually: - put cheaper, high-margin items near the most expensive thing on your menu - create seasonal specials - introduce new menu items as specials, sides, or appetizers rather than as an entree - draw boxes around the popular items, or highlight them in some way - carefully match descriptive tone with the desired clientele - destroy all currency symbols - suggest beverage pairings with the entree listing - make high-margin items more discoverable - chunk your menu into graspable categories; a giant pile of items should form a tree rather than a flat list - make the most expensive thing on your menu more expensive The word "soup" is a psychologically loaded word. You should only be using it on your menus if your overall marketing strategy is to attract value-based consumers.

brandonmenc 11y ago

It's impossible to exaggerate for effect, even slightly, on HN. Otherwise, you end up talking about soup for half the thread.

nandemo 11y ago
Impossible? What if I find 1 or 2 HN threads (among the tens of thousands that exist) that are a counter-example to your sweeping, extraordinary claim?