Miss Manners: Wife chastised me for giving restaurant feedback
I replied that my meal (chicken parm over spaghetti) was very good, but that the deep cast-iron dish it had been baked in, and subsequently served in, was challenging to eat from.
My wife chastised me for saying this, which I thought was odd coming from an outspoken woman. She said that I should have only said how good the food was, since the waitstaff has no control over the serving dishes. Apparently, according to her, I'm only supposed to say something if it's a compliment.
Your wife, like just about everyone else, has mistaken the restaurant-customer relationship for a social one.
However pleasant the atmosphere as a setting for socializing, restaurants are businesses that sell cooked food. Especially as this is a new restaurant, its owners want you to return and to recommend it.
So while it would be rude to criticize a private host's meal, it is not only acceptable but also useful to state politely any concerns at restaurants. A waiter should not take this personally, but should assure you that the criticism is useful and will be reported.
What Miss Manners finds worse than your wife's confusion is that many people also do the opposite and treat private hosts as if they were running businesses: dictating or criticizing the menu, seizing leftovers, and even failing to show up after accepting invitations. They might not dare to do the latter to a restaurant, for legitimate fear of being charged.
Dear Miss Manners: I suffer from a debilitating medical condition where I can't function in the heat for more than a couple minutes. If I am in the heat any longer, the symptoms I suffer are severe. It's so bad that I was diagnosed with a disability.
To offer a slight reprieve from the sun, when walking between buildings at work or in parking lots, I use a sun umbrella. When doing this, I often receive rude comments from people inquiring, 'When is the rain coming?' or something similar, or even worse.
What would be an appropriate response to these comments or questions?
'It's a parasol, silly!'
Dear Miss Manners: My fiancé and I are at the point in our lives where we are frequently invited to weddings, often destination weddings. Our friends, most of them affluent, often choose to get married in Europe (or somewhere else far away) to 'keep costs down,' even though the flights and hotels make things more expensive for guests.
One particularly egregious example is the daughter of a centimillionaire who held her wedding abroad 'to save money' — and so that her guests would 'have an opportunity to take a vacation.'
In the view of myself and my fiancé, this behavior is selfish and rude. What do you think?
That you need only decline the invitation, which will indeed save them money. If everyone declines, they should save quite a bit, as will the invitees. This strikes Miss Manners as a win-win situation.
New Miss Manners columns are posted Monday through Saturday on washingtonpost.com/advice. You can send questions to Miss Manners at her website, missmanners.com. You can also follow her @RealMissManners.
© 2025 Judith Martin
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
NYC student reading, math scores increase amid curriculum overhaul: test data
NEW YORK — More New York City public school students are considered 'proficient readers' after two years of major curriculum reforms, according to state test scores released Monday. About 56.3% of third- through eighth-graders met the state's bar for proficiency on English Language Arts exams in the spring — a 7.2 percentage-point increase since the year before. The results erased what officials referred to as last year's 'implementation dip' as students and teachers adjusted to the new curriculum. In math, 56.9% of students scored proficient or better, up by 3.5 percentage points. With the major gains, the city's students slightly outperformed the state in both reading and math. The Adams administration touted the proficiency rates as the system's highest in more than a decade, though experts caution against making comparisons to pre-2023 data, when ELA and math tests were aligned to new standards. 'While, of course, I am thrilled that we saw these kinds of increases, it's no time to rest,' Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said during an exclusive interview with the Daily News. 'What these numbers tell us is that we're on the right track. … That there's a lot of work to still do.' At the start of the 2023-24 school year, the city's public schools, under then-Chancellor David Banks, began standardizing reading curriculum as part of a literacy initiative known as 'NYC Reads.' Elementary schools were required to use one of three preapproved reading programs with a focus on evidence-based literacy instruction and phonics, which were implemented over two school years. On last year's reading exams, students who had more exposure to the curriculum tended to fare better than kids newer to the initiative. NYC Reads Phase 1 schools saw a higher increase from 48.1% to 59.7% — 11.6 percentage points in grades 3-5 — compared with districts in Phase 2, which increased 10.4 percentage points from 47.0% to 57.5%. A parallel effort is underway to standardize math curriculum in middle and high schools. While both the reading and math initiatives have been tweaked over the last year in response to teacher feedback, the Adams administration has promised to see them through. By the 2027-28 school year, Mayor Eric Adams, if reelected, has said all middle schools will be required to use city-approved programs in literacy and math. 'These academic gains in English Language Arts and math are a testament to what's possible when we invest in our young people and believe in their potential,' Adams said in a statement. The new scores come as Adams, who sat out the Democratic primary as he came up against since-dropped federal corruption charges, faces an uphill battle to reelection. Many of the mayor's most serious challengers have praised his focus on improving literacy, and the positive trend in last year's results could motivate a possible successor to stay the course. 'If the next administration sustains and expands this work, the best is yet to come!' said Banks, the former chancellor. Among the most promising signs in Monday's data were great strides by the city's youngest test takers. Third-grade students, who learned to read under the new regime and were spared COVID-19 school lockdowns, saw their ELA scores rise by 12.9 percentage points. Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, called third-graders' advances on reading exams a particularly 'hopeful signal that we are headed in the right direction.' 'At the same time,' Sweet said, 'the continued disparities by economic need, race/ethnicity, and disability status make clear that many students need extra support to become strong readers.' In math, Black and Hispanic students made the largest gains over the school year, but at 43% remain far below proficiency rates for white and Asian students: 75% and 81%, respectively. In reading, Black students made the largest gains, but still at a 47% proficiency rate compared with 73% for white students. Just 29% of students with disabilities were proficient in math and under 27% in reading. Overall, the results reinforced early progress shown this year on academic 'screeners' — fast assessments that are less comprehensive, but administered more frequently than the annual state exams. The screeners are used by teachers in real time to identify students in need of extra help. Aviles-Ramos said a major focus over the summer has been improving how teachers provide targeted support on top of classroom instruction for students who need it most. 'If that's not enough for you to understand the goal of the lesson, then sometimes you need that extra support, that intervention,' Aviles-Ramos said. 'Those practices have not necessarily been standardized — teachers do that work on their own.' 'We want to take the guesswork out of that,' added the chancellor, comparing it to taking the guesswork out of classroom instruction through curriculum mandates. _____
Fox News
42 minutes ago
- Fox News
Pilot, 3 passengers walk away from fiery plane crash in Montana: Video
Video captured the aftermath of a plane crash at Kalispell City Airport in Montana on Monday, and remarkably, the pilot and three passengers escaped serious injury. Kalispell Fire Department Chief Jay Hagen told Fox News Digital that emergency crews were dispatched shortly after 2 p.m. following reports of the crash. An investigation into the crash found that a small plane came in for landing when it crashed and slid into another small plane, causing them to burst into flames. Hagen said the three passengers and pilot on board the plane that crashed were able to get out of the aircraft with minor injuries. The chief also said nobody was on the stationary aircraft that the plane crashed into. In fact, all the victims were treated on the scene and released. Both planes involved were lost completely, he added. Cellphone video taken by witnesses shows the taxiway engulfed in flames and thick black smoke billowing into the air. In one clip, a bystander remarks that the plane "hit the ground and bounced up." Later footage shows the fire nearly extinguished, though the pavement remains coated in soot. Firefighters from Evergreen, Smith Valley and Whitefish assisted Kalispell crews in dousing flames that spread to adjacent grass. According to Hagen, the quick mutual‑aid response allowed firefighters to smother the blaze with foam within minutes. By 4:30 p.m., all crew members had left the scene, he added. The cause of the crash is currently under investigation.
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Plane crashes into parked aircraft while landing at Montana airport, sparking fire
The single-engine plane carrying four people attempted to land at around 2 p.m. Monday at the Kalispell City Airport. The Federal Aviation Administration reported at least one plane on the ground was struck, resulting in a fire that spread into a grassy area before being extinguished. Solve the daily Crossword
