Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

yffjcn · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 41

Customer: What's that?
Waiter: It's been soup.
Customer: I don't want to know what it's been. I want to know what it is now.

I feel confused of this sentence:"I don't want to know what it's been". Does it mean that what it was just now?

aleutian1 · Joined: 02 Jun 2014 Posts: 1 Location: Tulsa, OK - USA

I think the waiter is actually saying that it is BEAN soup...soup made with beans. And, since some people pronounce "been" a lot like "bean" (with the long E sound), the customer thinks the waiter means that it has BEEN (was previously) soup, and therefore wonders what it is now. It's a misunderstanding caused by mispronunciation.