Expensive breakfast


  • Considered Harmful

    I saw this on the way home from work.  I wish I had my camera.  It was a Steak n' Shake sign that read, "Sausage biscuit: $139".  Part of me wanted to know what kind of sausage biscuit is worth a hundred and thirty-nine dollars.  There was no decimal point, no smaller numbers, and not even so much as a space to separate dollars from cents.



  • Why, a sausage biscuit ten times the normal diameter of course.



  • OK well I had to look up what exactly 2 "sausage biscuit" is. Certainly in UK terminology, it sounded like something truly horrible. (To USAians - a biscuit is what you would call a cookie). Fortunately it turns out that it is neither a sausage nor a biscuit.

    anyway, that's one expensive bit of food.
     



  • @joe.edwards@imaginuity.com said:

    Part of me wanted to know what kind of sausage biscuit is worth a hundred and thirty-nine dollars.

     

    The best damn sausage biscuit in all the land 



  • Is this the first time you have seen a price like this?  How come anytime there is the slightest bit of difference in something it has to be posted as a WTF.  Just because they didn't use a period doesn't make the sign hard to read.  It might be funny at the time in your car to joke around about it, but in the end, this is an extremely common way to represent the price of something cheap.



  • @m0ffx said:

    Why, a sausage biscuit ten times the normal diameter of course.

     sqrt 10 ~= 3.16 times, surely (and even that assumes the same depth)... getting 10 times the diameter for only 10 times the price would be good value for money

     (oh come on, we're all pedants here...)



  • @tster said:

    in the end, this is an extremely common way to represent the price of something cheap.

    Maybe in the US (yes, I know that's what we're talking about...) but certainly not in the UK. There are also laws here governing advertising and prices, although I don't suppose that in this case anyone would complain if they were charged the correct price... 



  • @raluth said:

    @m0ffx said:

    Why, a sausage biscuit ten times the normal diameter of course.

     sqrt 10 ~= 3.16 times, surely (and even that assumes the same depth)... getting 10 times the diameter for only 10 times the price would be good value for money

     (oh come on, we're all pedants here...)

    Right!  And that is the reason why it is 10 times the diameter, and not a 100 times.... 10 times the diameter = 100 times the area, hence 100 times the typical price.

    BTW, I know that in the UK the word biscuit usually refers to what we call a cookie on this side of the pond, but what do you call what we call a biscuit?  A roll?  Bun?  Something else?

    I ask because sometimes there is misalignment between dialects (e.g. what you call chips, we call fries; what you call crisps, we call chips) and sometimes a different degree of refinement of detail (e.g. what you call a spanner, we call a wrench if it is one kind, or a spanner-wrench if it is a different kind) 



  • Speaking of funny signs, on my way home from work the other day, I noticed that a lamppost read "No stickers or advertisements, city of Calgary bylaw #whatever". I noticed that there was a lighter-colored square around the text, so I scratched at it with my nail. Turns out, it was a sticker.

    I don't know why I found that funny, but if I remember (and can find it again), I'll have to bring my camera with me.  



  • Wooo!  Another Calgarian!

     Anyway, down below (in the USA) "biscuit" is usually used to mean "scone" or "cracker", not "cookie", although it can be used both ways.



  • @Albatross said:

    Wooo!  Another Calgarian!

     Anyway, down below (in the USA) "biscuit" is usually used to mean "scone" or "cracker", not "cookie", although it can be used both ways.

     

    Wtf?  A biscuit is like a roll that hasn't risen very much, at least in the Northeast.  I've never heard a score or cracker called a biscuit here.

     Don't trust Canucks on US language :)
     



  • @Albatross said:

      Anyway, down below (in the USA) "biscuit" is usually used to mean "scone" or "cracker", not "cookie", although it can be used both ways.

    Typical Southern USA "biscuit" that most people use the term for:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit (scroll down past the main section)

    A chemically-leavened roll, more or less.  The article above likens American biscuits to conventional scones, but they seem worlds apart to me.


  • Considered Harmful

    @zip said:

    @Albatross said:

    Wooo!  Another Calgarian!

     Anyway, down below (in the USA) "biscuit" is usually used to mean "scone" or "cracker", not "cookie", although it can be used both ways.

     

    Wtf?  A biscuit is like a roll that hasn't risen very much, at least in the Northeast.  I've never heard a score or cracker called a biscuit here.

    Don't trust Canucks on US language :)
     

    I have to admit that I was ignorant of the alternate usages.  Zip has it right.  A sausage biscuit is such a roll, with sausage inside like a small sandwich.  I sort of assumed everyone already knew what it was...

    Edit:  Yes, Saladin is right, too.



  • What world do you people live in?  Tster is right.  This isn't a WTF, this isn't even a "mistake".

    http://www.whnet.com/4x4/pix/gas_price_1_29_2006.jpg

    Two hundred and forty-nine dollars for a gallon of gas? Goood LOOOOOORD that's a lot of money!  How 'bout I give you fifty cents and you push my car down the hill?



  • @Pap said:

    What world do you people live in? Tster is right. This isn't a WTF, this isn't even a "mistake".

    http://www.whnet.com/4x4/pix/gas_price_1_29_2006.jpg

    Two hundred and forty-nine dollars for a gallon of gas? Goood LOOOOOORD that's a lot of money! How 'bout I give you fifty cents and you push my car down the hill?

    There's no dollar sign there, so you have to figure out the units (ie that it's in cents) from context. There was a dollar sign in the OP's case, which somewhat implies it's a price in... er, I dunno... dollars, maybe?



  • Oh, so the lack of a dollar sign makes it obvious, whereas it would not have been before?

    http://www.gallupindependent.com/2006/mar/032006images/gas0320.jpg

    2749 cents for a gallon of gas? GOOOD LOOOOOORD that's a lot of money.



  • @joe.edwards@imaginuity.com said:

    I saw this on the way home from work.  I wish I had my camera.  It was a Steak n' Shake sign that read, "Sausage biscuit: $139".  Part of me wanted to know what kind of sausage biscuit is worth a hundred and thirty-nine dollars.  There was no decimal point, no smaller numbers, and not even so much as a space to separate dollars from cents.

     First, that's a lifetime membership to the sausage biscuit club.

    Second, this "missing decimal" thing has been gnawing at me for years.  Based on the ubiquity of it, I should be able to head down to Stan's Appliance Shack and buy that six-dollar refrigerator that they've been advertising on the tote board, but so far they're not going for it.



  • > Right!  And that is the reason why it is 10 times the diameter, and not a 100 times.... 10 times the diameter = 100 times the area, hence 100 times the typical price.

    Ah crap. I misread it, fair and square.



  • @Pap said:

    Oh, so the lack of a dollar sign makes it obvious, whereas it would not have been before?

    http://www.gallupindependent.com/2006/mar/032006images/gas0320.jpg

    2749 cents for a gallon of gas? GOOOD LOOOOOORD that's a lot of money.

    That has the number 9 much smaller than the other numbers, obviously implying that it means .9

    The OP specified that there was no such common method of identification on the sign he saw.



  • @Einsidler said:

    @Pap said:

    Oh, so the lack of a dollar sign makes it obvious, whereas it would not have been before?

    http://www.gallupindependent.com/2006/mar/032006images/gas0320.jpg

    2749 cents for a gallon of gas? GOOOD LOOOOOORD that's a lot of money.

    That has the number 9 much smaller than the other numbers, obviously implying that it means .9

    The OP specified that there was no such common method of identification on the sign he saw.

     

    This logic is a pretty slippery slope.   The original sign was selling a bisquite which "obviously implied" that the price was going to be low.  Furthermore, the price did not give a number of cents, which and no price is valid without the cents unless there are 0 cents (which is extremely rare) so therefore the "lack" of cents obviously implies that the last two digits are cents.

     

    I don't understand why you people try so extremely hard to makes things look stupid.  When you saw the sign did you think, "Damn, I'll never buy a biscuit that expensive", or did you think "oh that's funny" knowing full well how much the biscuit actually cost?  The sign was effective in communicating the price of the biscuit.  Apparently it was so effective at getting your attention that you can and posted on the internet.  Now you are probably thinking about that restaurant.  So the advertisement worked extremely well. 



  • @RayS said:

    OK well I had to look up what exactly 2 "sausage biscuit" is. Certainly in UK terminology, it sounded like something truly horrible. (To USAians - a biscuit is what you would call a cookie).

    What is a USAian?  Is that like a UKian? 



  • @operagost said:

    USAian?  Is that like a UKian? 

    A far more accurate, if grammatically abhorrent, short version of "citizen of the United States of America" than the typical meaning of the word, "American".

    Only a USAian can lay claim to the word, "American"?  Next thing you know, the yanks are going to start thinking that Columbus discovered their country.

    (ha ha only serious)



  • @AssimilatedByBorg said:

    @operagost said:
    USAian?  Is that like a UKian? 
    A far more accurate, if grammatically abhorrent, short version of "citizen of the United States of America" than the typical meaning of the word, "American".

    Only a USAian can lay claim to the word, "American"?  Next thing you know, the yanks are going to start thinking that Columbus discovered their country.

    (ha ha only serious)

    Well, true he didn't discover the land we currently call the United States of America, and I'm well aware that he wasn't the first to discover lands west of Europe, but in a practical sense the existence of the Americas at large were the result of his discoveries - any subsequent explorers owed him a debt for having found the explorable territories - and it made a difference to formal Science and to the world geopolitical scene like no other prior discoveries ever did. As such, I've found most jabs against Columbus to be perhaps technically correct, but overblown in and of themselves as well.

    I guess the real WTF is an artifact of the way they teach things in elementary schools, though.

    Want another WTF? My local economic historian assures me that the much-vaunted Triangular Trade they teach you of in middle/high school is about 95% bogus. But it's a neatly packaged concept, and since when have schools been about facts, anyway? :)


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