It's the names.

        I cannot say the names.

        I would never drink a latte, even if it tasted like a sugary cloud. It sounds Frasier-esque, girly-man-ish. I couldn't order it.

        Nor frappuccino, which tumbles from the mouth like a bed of tulips. And never, ever mochaccino.

        I don't even like to say “decaf.”

        Coffee without caffeine isn't “unleaded.” That's as dumb as “decaf.” I just say coffee.

        Gimme a coffee. If it causes me to spend the rest of the day jangling like a live wire, well, that's the price of dignity.

        I went years without ice cream, because the ice cream place we favored offered something called a “junior mixin' ” and there was no way I was going to ask for something like that.

        At the Roy Rogers restaurants of the past, cashiers dressed in faux buckskin and called you “podnah,” you ordered french fries by the “holster.” I'd rather be buried on Boot Hill than order a holster of fries.

        Is it just me? Or is it tough for other guys to ask for “vinaigrette” dressing at a restaurant? I always ask for “Russian” dressing. I hate Russian dressing. But it sounds good, rolling off my tongue like Commie propaganda.

        Gimme a hunk of lettuce salad with R-r-r-ussian dressing.

        I won't drink Lowenbrau beer. The guys at Anheuser-Busch understand this. Their best-selling barley is Budweiser. Bud. Bud slides off your lips like an ironworker rolling up his sleeves. It's a manly beer.

        Gimme a Bud.

        And forget wine. What about guys who order . . . chardonnay? What about guys who order chardonnay . . . from a specific year? What are they thinking?

        This applies to cultural matters, too.

        I will never see the new Kevin Kline movie, even if it wins a truckload of Oscars. Life As A House is not only a criminally stupid name for a movie, it's a stupid thing to say.

        Two, please, for Life As A House. I don't think so.

        ABC used to have a show I never watched: Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place. World's dumbest name for a TV show. I hear they shortened it to Two Guys and a Girl. Too late. Never watched it.

        I've had trouble with this my whole life.

        I hear osso buco is good. I wouldn't know. Who says osso buco without sounding like a pretentious fop? I'll have the osso buco with a bottle of your best 1982 chardonnay. No, I won't. If they called it a lamb shank (which is what it is), I could go for it.

        At Denny's, I get the Grand Slam Breakfast. Only I don't call it that. I ask for “the $2.99 special with two of everything.”

        “Biggie” fries? A “Big Buford”? You've got to be kidding.

        My quirkiness on this point has cost me a lot of good eatin', podnah. When I think of all those delicious fries, that delightful ice cream and that osso that I never buco-ed, it makes me weep.

        Maybe I could start paying someone to order for me.

       Contact Paul Daugherty by phone: 768-8454; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com.

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