If you’re in a book club, how do you decide what books to read? There are lots of different ways, depending on your group’s goals. And is it ever wise to correct someone who mispronounces a word? Sometimes you have to decide if...
Christine in Denver, Colorado, is pondering the etiquette of correcting someone’s pronunciation. How do you approach knowing the actual pronunciation of a word, when it’s not the most common one? For example, Christine learned that the...
Rafaella in Wausau, Wisconsin wonders about unwritten rules of etiquette regarding when it is okay as something of an outsider to talk about certain subjects within a family. The rules depend in part on in-group and out-group dynamics within the...
An ort is a small bite of food left on one’s dinner plate. Also known as the manners bit or manners piece, because some people consider it polite for guests to leave that last bite, which suggests that the host provided enough for everyone to...
It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell, for example, advocated answering with Ahoy!, while Thomas Edison argued for Hello. As...
Ken in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, wonders about the use of a couple of interjections. Why don’t people begin sentences with the word Say any more? And is it impolite to start a sentence with Hey? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...