Yesterday, Richard Cohen wrote a piece about tipping. Oh boy. Strap in.
For those unfamiliar with the seeping, infected verbal wounds collected works of Richard Cohen, he’s the Washington Post columnist responsible for such luminary insights as the idea that the alleged U-Va rape incident was a result of not enough “real men,” who sagely noted that interracial relationships make normal people want to throw up, who was the first to reveal the shocking (and real!*) connection between twerking and sexual assault, who thinks racial profiling is an excellent anti-crime measure for society in general and New York City in particular, who actively stanned for World Wars, who pointed out the important issue of Richard Cohen’s inability to get laid by hot 20-somethings because James Bond, who adopted the wholly novel position that hey, maybe the government should lie to us more often, who…
…holy hell, I had planned to reference every instance of Cohen stupidity a GM site had written about in the past, but if I do that, we’re going to be here all day. It’s probably best to call it now. It’s also worth pointing out (for a variety of reasons) that Cohen is listed as a “liberal” columnist.
That WaPo could employ writers like Alexandra Petri, Rachel Feltman, and Clinton Yates at the same time as Richard Cohen (who, it must be noted, is somehow not the worst op-ed writer working for the newspaper) is a testament to…well, something, I’m sure. Perhaps the inherent insanity of attempting to simultaneously represent all philosophical constituencies, from people who enjoy humor (Petri) to people who want to read good sports/culture reporting and opinions (Yates) to people who want to learn science things (Feltman) to people with the critical thinking skills and general philosophical flexibility of a rotary saw (Cohen).**
Cohen has now turned his massive intellect (no) to the subject of tipping, and…whoo. I mean…wow. Let’s just get to this:
Danny Meyer, the New York restaurateur, may have started something. Last week, he announced he would eliminate tipping at his 13 restaurants and raise his prices. There followed a plethora of editorials and op-ed columns, most of them in support of the new policy, some of them pointing out — as you might have guessed — that tipping is anti-democratic, sexist, racist and, if it does not in some way contribute to global warming, that’s only because the study has yet to be done.
Marvel at this intro. Behold its magnificently smug yet subtle (for Richard Cohen, anyway) dickishness. Take particular note of the insinuations that sexism, racism, and classism are overblown in today’s society. Witness how it cloaks itself in forced jollity, exactly like your one asshole uncle who ruins every Thanksgiving. Richard Cohen: The Internet’s Shitty Thanksgiving Uncle. He should have business cards made.
Still, I love tipping.
I really wish I could actually bet on things like “Richard Cohen definitely loves the concept of tipping.” Bookmakers would not accept bets on that particular line in a million billion years, but still.
The practice originated with European aristocracy, whence the term itself comes — “To Insure Promptitude,” thus TIP. The Financial Times editorial where I found that much-disputed fact
Oh, for the love of…how many times do we have to go over this? “Tip” does not stand for “To Insure Promptness” or “To Insure Performance” or “To Insure Prompt Service.” It has never stood for any of those, ever. The idea that it ever has is an apocryphal revisionist linguistic effort by those who require their history to be tidy and easily-consumed. In short, it is horseshit.
By the way, if you click that first link, it goes to another WaPo piece where the writer, Maura Judkis—to her credit—references this canard as a “story.” To Richard Cohen, this apparently translates “a fact,” because he…read it somewhere, I guess? Man, he’s going to be really, really disappointed when he finds out Spider-Man isn’t real.
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