DEAR MISS MANNERS: I heard a joke from a good friend who took one other good friend, “Alice,” out for dinner at a pleasant however informal French restaurant.
Alice discovered a hair in her roasted hen dish. Having alerted the waitress, she was supplied a profuse apology, assured the meal wouldn't be placed on the invoice and was requested how lengthy she can be keen to attend for a brand new dish. Alice thanked the waitress and stated that no new dish was required.
When the waitress had retreated, Alice turned to my good friend and stated, “Is it OK to eat it or not?” She did eat it, and cherished it.
Now I'm curious to seek out out what the right response would have been. Are you able to assist me?
GENTLE READER: Your good friend’s good friend’s manners, in addition to her dinner, are in want of a trim.
Warning the employees that the meals is contaminated is, to a good restaurant, solely barely much less worrisome than screaming “hearth!” It's equally prone to empty the eating room, albeit on a distinct time scale. Neither the employees nor the man diners would discover a lot consolation in subsequent assurances that it's only a small hearth.
Even when she was not squeamish in regards to the hen, she ought to have thought of the impression on others by informing the employees quietly and setting the dish apart. As to your good friend’s choices, Miss Manners believes just one remained: wanting inexperienced and asking to be excused for not feeling hungry.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I take advantage of textual content messages to ask and reply particular questions or to relay data. For conversations, I take advantage of phone calls.
A former graduate pupil lately contacted me by way of textual content message, and I used to be actually having fun with catching up. If we had been conversing by way of cellphone, I'd have recognized the cues that indicated whether or not and when she wished/wanted to wind the dialog down.
Being in the dead of night in regards to the conventions of messaging, I requested her to let me know after I was carrying the “dialog” overlong. Then I requested her a number of extra questions on her life to let her know that I wasn’t hinting that I wanted to finish our chat.
She didn’t reply. In any respect. May you advise me if I have to do one thing in a different way sooner or later?
GENTLE READER: There's a tendency to suppose that new know-how requires completely new etiquette, when the reality is extra incremental.
The phone conditioned us to offer verbal cues (“I’m so sorry, however I actually must go”) to interchange the nonverbal ones (anxious, furtive glances on the clock).
The most important etiquette consequence of texting derives from its immediacy: Conversations can have lacunae when, unbeknownst to the opposite social gathering, the prepare arrives on the station or the doorbell rings. One may supply to “be proper again,” however additionally it is permitted to droop the dialog for later resumption.
None of which requires a modification of your habits — although your pupil, if she had no intention of returning to the dialog, ought to have indicated that she was signing off.
Please ship your inquiries to Miss Manners at her web site, www.missmanners.com; to her e mail, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or by means of postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas Metropolis, MO 64106.