Coffee shop confusion

The following dialogue is from Clear Speech by Judy Gilbert (1993), and this can be useful for demonstrating and practicing natural speech phenomena like linking and blending of consonants, and stress patterns in compound nouns and noun phrases.

Coffee shop confusion

The customer doesn’t hear very well, and the waiter is impatient.

Customer:	What can I have to start with?
Waiter:	Soup or salad.
Customer:	What’s Super Salad?
Waiter:	What do you mean “Super Salad”?
Customer:	I thought you just said you have a Super Salad.
Waiter:	No, we don’t have anything like that. Just plain green salad. And tomato soup.
Customer:	Oh, okay. Well, what do you have for desert?
Waiter:	We have pie and apples.
Customer:	I don’t care much for pineapples.
Waiter:	Are you making jokes or what? We have pie and apples.
Customer:	Okay, okay. Just give me the soup and a piece of apple pie.
Waiter:	Sorry, the only pie we have is berry.
Customer:	Very what?
Waiter:	What?
Customer:	You said the pie was very something. Very good?
Waiter:	Uh, I said the pie was berry. And if you will wait just a minute, I’m going to get another waiter to serve you.