NEW ORLEANS—Shifting in his chair as the server hovered over the table waiting to take his order, local man Mitch Frahm reportedly made a last-second decision Tuesday to point to the item he wanted to avoid mispronouncing “number 47.” “Sorry, this is so embarrassing, but I don’t know how to say the name of this dish,” said Frahm, gesturing toward the picture of an entrée next to the traditional Arabic numeral for 47, the only number system he had ever used. “I didn’t want to try to sound it out, because it may be spoken differently than how it looks on the page to a native English speaker. Do you say 47 like four-seven, or is the four silent? Do you stress the ‘en’ in seven or the ‘fo’ in four? What if I completely butcher it, and it means something offensive? I don’t want to be the white American guy who pretends to be fluent in numbers just by doing an accent when I order them. They really should have a pronunciation guide at the bottom.” At press time, reports confirmed Frahm was smiling as he enjoyed his number 47 side of plain brown rice.
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