LIBE CAFE—The University’s switch from Starbucks to La Colombe this semester was seen as a resounding success for the local labor movement, and a devastating defeat for any fucking idiot with English as their first language. One such dumbass, Tom Hall ‘27, is having an especially difficult time nailing down the new cafe’s pronunciation.
“I really enjoy the cappuccinos they have at La Coloomie,” Hall said, without even attempting to adjust his tongue height to achieve a nasal vowel sound. “Besides, La Calimba is much cheaper than Starbucks ever was.”
It’s hard to take Hall seriously when he speaks like this, given that it should be pretty obvious non-phonemic lax vowels only appear in Quebec as allophones, and Cornell is not in Quebec.
French professor Noémie Trémaux, who has spent her entire life studying the language, echoed this point, adding that La Colombe is easy to pronounce when you take into account labial consonant phonemes, elision, and the rest.
“You have to be reallyyyyyyyyyyy damn stupid not to understand how nasal fricative voiceless constants combine with approximant labial palatal sounds,” she said, adding that “[she’d] hate to see how this neanderthal pronounces hors d’œuvre.”
Moreover, most students know La Colombe is pronounced exactly as it looks, and that if it looks like an enchaînement, it probably is one.
Hall, however, remains unmoved by such criticism and continues to trailblaze new ways to be loudly illiterate.
“I cannot wait to get my hands on some La Columbine today,” he said. “I just wish the Leebay Cafay line wasn’t so long all the time!”
