Would you like a pointless question with your Starbucks?

English professors these days aren't often cast as defenders of correct usage. But New York professor Lynne Rosenthal, who holds a PhD from Columbia University (it's not clear from news reports where she teaches) has been hailed in some quarters as a folk hero for making a stand against Starbucks' "fascist" use of bad English. A ding-dong at one of the coffee chain's counters ended with her being led by police from the premises and threatened with arrest if she attempts to return.

The point at issue is, to say the least, a little moot. Professor Rosenthal, after ordering a multi-grain bagel, was asked by the person behind the counter, "Do you want butter or cheese?" News reports quote the prof as then declining to answer: "I refused to say 'without butter or cheese'. When you go to Burger King, you don't have to list the six things you don't want. Linguistically, it's stupid, and I'm a stickler for correct English." At this point, civil exchange clearly broke down.

I'm not sure exactly where the vandalism of good sense is in the above, but Professor Rosenthal will surely win much sympathy for the earlier counter battles she reports having fought over the chain's prescribed terms for describing its coffee cups. (Starbucks does not sell small, medium or large coffees: customers must choose between "tall", "grande" and "venti" – the latter option, bizarrely, being Italian for 20 – as in fluid ounces. Duh.)

Though she seems to have picked the wrong issue to go to war over, these kind of corporate versions of what Steven Poole calls "unspeak" are a menace, bullying consumers into articulating what they don't really mean.

The item of nonsensical coffee vocab that I personally can't stand articulating is "skinny", as it seems to encrypt whole volumes of disavowal and denial. But if you're getting the lattes in and that's what someone else has ordered, you would make yourself fairly ridiculous trying to avoid using it.

Fellow language lovers, which offences against good English make you want to stage a revolt?