Chinese wavelength (London)

On my CALL (Computer Aided Language Learning) research project in the mid-80s, I shared an office with the programmer.  I was to design the teaching material, and he to come up with a program—to put it simply—for the learner to negotiate his/her way around that material. 

It was a big office, so I equipped it with my own kettle and coffee-making ingredients.  One day, after a couple of hours of being completely sucked into the world of designing Chinese teaching material, I decided to stop for a coffee and checked with the programmer, “David, coffee?”  He said, “Yes, please.”  I asked, “Milk?”  He said, “Yes, a bit.”  I asked, “How bit?” 

(Update 231111:  Someone's given me the feedback that my "how bit?" is not clear enough.  Let me use a parallel example to illustrate it:


Q:  Milk?
A:  Yes, a little.
Q:  How little?)

(Event happened 1986)