Hi all,
Can someone help me with the proper spelling of this colloquial word for a small old fashioned cafe ? Is it Caf, Caff or Caffe ?
Spelt cafe, pronounced caff.
Depending on your social class?
I’d say depending on the establishment.
Most definitely. I am leaning toward spelling it caff, as that reflects the actual usage by the character, who belongs to a sub group of the London working class who commonly use that slang term.
Even peeps what sez “caff” spells it “cafe”, in the same way that even someone wot would call “Sharon’s Cafe” a “caff”, would be unlikely to read out loud “Café de Paris” as “caff de paris” (unless they’re deliberately displaying inverse snobbery).
Innit.
Depending also on the age of the character, and the location. Darn sarf, I can’t imagine any members of the X, Y, or Yawn generations, whatever their social class, talking about either “cafés” or “caffs”; “coffee-shops” for them, or possibly “Starbucks” or “Costa”, even if the establishment is not. (Neighbours, with its epicentric coffee-shop, was influential. Doesn’t Eastenders have a coffee-shop now?)
Friends, surely?
That, too.
The philosopher members of the, now defunct, RED LION Debating Society, used to refer to the greasy-spoon cafe, next-door-but-one to the Red, as Le cafétéria infernal.
Hope that helps.