DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper greeting of a childless woman or man on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day?
GENTLE READER: “Hello.”
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a woman member of a mostly male international wine society, and I enjoy tweaking the men’s noses. I can’t and won’t deny it.
I’d very much like to buy some 18-button gloves, with the option to turn back the glove part. It would be delightful to turn to my table partner and ask him, in all sweet innocence, to help me unbutton the hand part of the glove.
The problem is, I am having trouble finding the appropriate online search terms to use. It keeps giving me black gloves, but I want white kid. Might you have any advice on how to research vendors of such?
P.S. I also like to whip out my pince-nez from my grandmother’s evening bag to read the table menu.
GENTLE READER: You might find unused 18-button white kid gloves at flea markets. Fragile as they are, they were often stockpiled by ladies who might not have gotten around to using all of them.
But they would be of little use in tweaking others if those others include some who know the manners to go with the gloves and could catch you in error. Above-the-elbow gloves (“button” refers to the length, as there are actual buttons only at the hand) are properly worn on occasions when the dress code is white tie, and such occasions hardly exist nowadays.
And while you are right that the hand part is tucked back to leave the fingers bare when eating or drinking, no lady would ask a gentleman to fool with her clothing.
As for the pince-nez, you have Miss Manners’ blessing, if you think having your nose pinched is worth it. Can’t you find a lorgnette?
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I applied for a job through a temp agency in a foreign, non-English-speaking country. I received a reply with the header “Hey Ian,” and the person also used English words completely without reason.
So I responded that I do not like to be approached with that kind of language (“Hey”). He got in a hissy fit and called me rude and disrespectful. Later he sent me another email, this time with the header “Hi Ian.”
I find it very rude and very unprofessional to be spoken to in that kind of language. I am not his drinking buddy. I worked for 20 years in 4- and 5-star hotels, and I would never even dream of greeting a guest with “Hey.”
Any thoughts? Am I just too old?
GENTLE READER: Maybe just too cantankerous?
Miss Manners does not care for false chumminess any more than you do. But neither does she condone the rudeness of delivering unsolicited criticism -- never mind the foolishness of doing so to a prospective employer.
Presumably, you are in no danger of getting that particular job. But she worries about your plan to work in a foreign country when you are intolerant of differences in language usage. That foreigner may well have thought that Americans liked to be addressed as he did. It has become so commonplace that many of them must.