Miss Manners’ meager arsenal consists only of the withering look, the insistent and repeated request, the cold voice, the report up the chain of comm… - Judith Martin

while eighteen-button gloves have three small pearl buttons each at the musketeer (which everyone knows is the opening at the wrist), there are, indeed, eighteen buttons on each in length. That button is a standard of measurement of approximately one inch. The approximate part is because it is a French standard of measurement.

We’re talking tradition here, for heaven’s sake. Not literary analysis. Do you consider “Good morning” to be a weather report?

Then there was the time that Mrs. Grover Cleveland attempted to engage a tongue-tied guest in conversation by seizing on the nearest thing at hand, an antique cup of thinnest china. “We’re very pleased to have these; they’re quite rare and we’re using them for the first time today,” she is supposed to have said. “Really?” asked the distraught guest, picking up his cup and nervously crushing it in his hand. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” said the hostess. “They’re terribly fragile — see?” She smashed hers. Mr.