Holy Cow, Burgers! And the Oddity of the Swiss-French Dialect

Awesome Burgers; good linguists!

The old quatre-vingt vs. huitant debate caught me out in the Holy Cow burger bar yesterday.  The place is completely and udderly brilliant, its yummy burgers are done up with imaginative and various toppings, service is speedy and its outside tables on the Rue de Carouge in Plainpalais are always packed at lunch.

I chose the Elvis Blue Cheese burger yesterday. At CHF13.90 perhaps it sounds a little dear, especially if you go for a meal option and spend closer to CHF20, but then they are super quality burgers and it is fair to say you don't actually need fries if you aren't looking for a blow-out meal. Compared to Ronald and his golden arches, which are said to be the most expensive in the world here in Switzerland, it is a no-brainer. Holy Cow every time, I highly recommend a trip there.


On the language front, all the staff seem to be bi-lingual.  My accent is terrible and so yesterday, when I asked for my burger to take away emporter the girl behind the counter thought I'd asked for water. Seeing as how both her English and her French were perfect, I found myself in a difficult spot denying I wanted water, but clearly able to speak English. I insist I'll continue to speak French to them, even though most there seem to be ex-pats at high school or college.

She handed me my ticket, reading out my number, cent huitant, 180, however when the guy behind the food service counter called out my number he called it out in Academie Francaise French, not Swiss-French, so it took me a while to realise cent quatre-vingt was for me. The Swiss-French system of big double digit numbers is soooo much better than the Academie's, with its septant (70), huitant (80) and nonant (90).