But few are asking a basic question: How much English do Philadelphians speak? Not much, and the world knows it.

When news sources around the globe picked up on the Geno's fiasco, some made a point of mocking Philly's native tongue. From Kitchener, Ontario, The Record headlined a piece about the controversy with "Philly Cheesesteak Restaurant: Yo, Speak English, Will Youse?" The Associated Press article included a guide to ordering cheesesteaks in Philly and acknowledged that, "it's not as if native Philadelphians speak the King's English."

Oddly, this became one man's reason why he won't and can't "cater" to Philly's growing Hispanic population.

"I'm barely fluent in English, how am I supposed to learn two languages?" said Al Barnes, a 45-year-old motorcyclist and Geno's fan from Allentown. As much of his upper arms are awash in English ink one can only hope he's being ironic.

But it's true that Philly has its own dialect.

For years, the University of Pennsylvania Research Project on Language Change, led by linguist William Labov, studied the city's unique pronunciations [Cover, "Phillyspeak," Jim Quinn, Aug. 14, 1997]. The study's conclusion, in summary, said that English is changing around the world, but Philadelphia is leading the northern United States.

Few outside of Philadelphia know what water ice is. Nor is it likely that your average English-speaking American could classify the country's proud mascot as the bald iggle. Were you to go downashure or buy some beggles, you'd confound a foreigner for both geographical and linguistic reasons.

Go ahead and diagram the decree "Whiz wit-out" and you'll come to the conclusion that Geno's owner Joe Vento is not asking customers to speak English—he's asking them to speak cheesesteak—a South Philly dialect that one theory partially credits to the influence of Italian immigrants and the reluctance of their children to sound like chips off the old country. Chips like the Italian Vento.

But the saddest thing about all of this is not that Vento is a jerk, or that Philadelphia says "shitty" instead of "city," but that in the end, Vento's sign isn't reaching his target audience.

"It should be written in Spanish," said Spanish-speaking Geno's patron Lorri Herrera. In perfect English.