Show HN: A generator of Fake Italian Coffee names

[katspaugh]

UX suggestions:

- make the "Give me a Coffee name" button 5x larger

- place the button and generated name in the middle of the page, not at the bottom

- remove the pink border from the secondary title ("Create your own...") because it looks like a button.

[CamelCaseName]

Yes, if not for your comment I would have never found it. I thought it was the "buy me a coffee" donation type link at first glance.

[ellimilial]

Yes please, it took me over 5 secs to figure out what to click, felt like ages.

[soco]

The first title box increases also in height with page width - on my laptop I get quite a huge stamp, while on the mobile it's same size as the button below. Ah, and on my Samsung Galaxy the button doesn't get the special cursive font, no matter which browser I use.

[chiefofgxbxl]

The paragraph text is also difficult to read on top of the page background pattern. Maybe add a white background to the text?

[qwerty456127]

Finding the button seems so hard this even seems a feature rather than a bug. Sort of a game.

[tomcooks]

Very nice, these fake works upset me as well.

As a foreigner I do not understand how those made up nonsensical words (common in coffee, car model names, appliances, websites), or that stereotypical "mamma mia i speak-a english-a language" intonation aren't considered on par with making fun of the Asian stereotypical pronunciation or making up words like "Ching Chong Pling Plong" to sell something.

Any native American can help me understand the difference between making fun of Asians/Blacks/other groups and italo-americans?

[uulu]

This is a rabbit hole. You probably didn't mean it this way, but:

> Any native American can help me understand the difference between making fun of Asians/Blacks/other groups and italo-americans?

You know what "native american" means in (American) English, don't you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United...

[kop316]

To offer a counter perspective (American here!), I did not see it as poking fun at Italians or Italian language. I saw it poking fun at coffee stores in America, as some have a tendency to make some sort of drink and give it have a name that sounds similar to the ones in the website.

[RaSoJo]

If it makes you feel any better, the Italians enjoy making fun of American lingo as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisencolinensinainciusol

[derekzhouzhen]

In China there is a proverb:

> Don't treat others in the ways you don't want to be treated.

How others treat us is irrelevant to how we should behave. There are many craps we get but it is not a excuse to unload the same craps back.

[dfxm12]

In my lifetime, I've witnessed first hand a lot of racism, and just outright violence towards Asians and Blacks, including institutional racism. I believe that's the difference.

Italian Americans don't have to worry about this sort of institutional racism (at least not in generations), so it's easier to assume these jokes are honest attempts at humor vs bigotry.

[kevinmgranger]

Italians aren't discriminated against en masse in the US, so poking fun at the language is seen as "punching down".

[ticviking]

The simple answer is that any group that is considered to be “white” whatever their level of integration is fair game. I’m not sure it’s an accurate answer or why it maps to my experience but, you don’t need to look very hard to find similar stereotypes of Irish, Russians and other distinctive European ethnicities.

[theCodeStig]

You’re on point, there is no difference.

[WalterGR]

It's easy to miss the "Give me a Coffee name" button at the bottom.

Edit: I expected it to automatically generate a coffee name. So when I first viewed the page, I assumed it was broken due to the HN "Hug of Death" and left. I only viewed it again because I was surprised about the number of upvotes.

[phgn]

Same. Mentally I thought this was a "buymeacoffee" donation link, and just left the page confused.

[nynox]

Fake foreign words can sometimes take a life of their own, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pseudo-French_words_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pseudo-German_words_in...

My favorite coffee name so far is definitely Urino Decaffeinato

[kergonath]

The first link is terrible. “Voir dire” is not pseudo-French, it’s an archaic expression from old Norman French (a lot of such phrases ended up in English legal language). Also, “nom de plume” is used commonly in French.

[tonyedgecombe]

>Urino Decaffeinato

I think I was drinking that this morning.

[gpderetta]

that doesn't sound very tasty, but to each their own I guess.

[MrDunham]

I clicked the link, read the copy, and was laughing/enjoying myself so much that I had to come back to drop a comment.

100% worth the time. This was a wonderful way to start the day.

[sdoering]

I agree. It was a great lunch time past time. I loved it.

Reminded me of "Tech Names as a service" from Vincent Warmerdam on pyData 2017 (Berlin) [1].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hR4peP9V4A

[tianlong]

I'm glad it made you laugh! :)

[1cvmask]

We somehow came out with AI (Angered Italians) with the Americano:

The term "caffè Americano" specifically is Italian for "American coffee". There is a popular, but unconfirmed, belief that the name has its origins in World War II when American G.I.s in Italy would dilute espresso with hot water to approximate the coffee to which they were accustomed."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caff%C3%A8_Americano

[squarefoot]

As an Italian I had to try it, of course. Luckily none of the 30 or so generated names could fool a coffee drinking Italian. Our tradition is safe ...for now:)

[sdoering]

After having had a similar discussion about that with a colleague from Italy last week, I just had to forward this to her and her Data Science team.

Especially the "Angered Italians (AI) Recurrent Neural Network" made me (and hopefully her) crack up.

[przemub]

Effusione Urina. I can make my own uric infusion at home - is that the next unicorn?

[martin_a]

Just a quick thought, while I'm sipping my Schiatondont Lungo Decaffeinato: You could make the "give me a coffee name" button larger. Also some space after the button would make it look nicer, I think.

[ale42]

As a native Italian speaker I think that the tradition is safe from AI for now... Uussimanto or Dantentandim doesn't quite sound like Italian ;) And there might be a bit too many "Effusione" names :)

[kevinmgranger]

Yeah, 90% of the ones I generated start with Effusione. Must be a popular technique in fake-Italy.

[sfgweilr4f]

I like this. I'd like similar for pizza as well.

The real joke is the fact that most Italians look at US coffee with a sense of either vague or specific disappointment. Does not matter what fancy name you come up with.

On the other hand you could try asking an Italian barista for a Latte and see what you end up with.

[legrande]

You could generate ideas for domain names with this too.

Many people work backwards from a domain name to build their business/project/whatever. That is, the domain is dreamed up first before the name, instead of having a name for a project and then looking for a corresponding domain.

[bloopernova]

My favourite coffee is called Lobster Butter Love, so these names don't seem quite out of the ordinary for me!

(Lobster Butter Love is from Roos Roast in The People's Republic of Ann Arbor, Michigan)

Thank you, OP, for making this site, it made me laugh :)

[jinto36]

Yep, this seems to be pretty much how Nespresso pods get named- both the "official" ones and "compatible" ones from Target, etc.

[hoyd]

I remember someone to nice wrote a perl script that generated a random, but possible coffee based on all ingredients and such. Loved it.

[Kaibeezy]

I shit you not, first click was Schitunato Lungo.

Next one was Effusione Mortando, possibly available at the Pastaway Cafe over by the Piazza di Spagna.

[ellimilial]

Diffusione Urino

Sure it's delish, very appealing.

[pmontra]

Is the Erenzione Lungo blue?

[whalesalad]

I love that the call to action button is the smallest thing on the page.

[jerrygoyal]

I'd probably never try Fartica coffee.

[qwerty456127]

I want more word generators!

[fspacef]

Haha this is quite clever

[dylan604]

oh sure, break away from the thiscoffeedoesnotexist trope

[undebuggable]

doppio venti mezzo litro