Bad Manners and Brimstone

Mazal tov!  I'm so happy for you.

I wouldn't put too much thought into what you want to be called.  The first grandchild names the grandparents, and often, no matter what anyone told them to call you, it ends up being MooMoo or something.  And you love it.

One of my friends' grandchildren call her "Happy."  Another is "Q."

In my case, I had neither a choice nor a kid-created name.  Nana, Grandma, and Bubbie are all "taken" in our family.  I figured the Jerusalem grandmother would be Savta (Hebrew for Grandmother), so I thought maybe I could be Granny -- it sounds so cheerful, like a Granny Smith apple.  Nope.  Jerusalem grandmother, who is originally from Iran, is Mamani, the Farsi word for grandmother (grandfather is Babajoon), and my daughter informed us we would be Savta and Saba -- I didn't even get a vote!  I was kind of waiting for the first kid to come up with something else, but he didn't.  But as you can imagine, it's the sweetest sound in my ear now. 

The only downside is that every public place is full of little voices calling "Savta!" so I'm always turning around.

I think there's a difference between something like a wedding, where there are lots of tables and the possibility of being seated at a table for 10-12 people where you might not know anyone, versus a dinner party consisting of 6 to 8 people.

In the case of a large table of potential strangers, yeah, I'd want to be seated next to my spouse, or at least someone I know.

At a dinner party of 6 to 8, there will be moments when the conversation engages all attendees, and times when smaller, separate conversations break out. It's those smaller conversations where it's nice to be seated next to someone other than your spouse to give you the opportunity to talk to someone you might not otherwise get to talk to.

Plus, at a dinner party, there is a host who can and usually does provide conversation starters, introductions, and such.

At a wedding table, with no host at each table, people really are left on their own for mingling, which can be more difficult at table full of strangers.

Husband and I don't attend lots of diner parties.  At weddings I would be upset if we were not seated together.  Holiday meals we tend to sit next to each other. Other events--sometimes we sit together and sometimes yes it is a break to talk to other folks.  My mother was brow beaten to marry in later life to someone who would have said he needed to protect her by sitting next to her.  In reality he was an abuser who never gave her a moment of privacy.

I still occasionally look at the Miss Manners column out of habit, although it’s nowhere near as good or as witty as it was before Judith Martin handed it over to her much-less-talented children. And I'm sure that a large proportion of the queries are fabricated, either by readers or the columnists. But one of yesterday’s questions, or rather the readers’ responses to it in UExpress.com, interested me: https://www.uexpress.com/life/miss-manners/2025/07/29.

In my (British) childhood, dinner parties were a major part of middle-class socialising; my parents (who, for context, weren’t stuffy or old-fashioned in the least: they were quite bohemian, as were a great many of their friends) held one almost every week. The format was simple: a couple invited four guests (could be six if you had a big enough dinner table, but - British houses being a lot smaller than American ones - four was the norm) who might or might not already know each other, for drinks followed by a three course meal. And at the meal, couples were always separated: the point being that you wanted your guests to meet and talk to each other, not sit talking to their spouses, which they could do any evening in their own home. Everybody in my parents’ circle took this for granted. I also note from my ancient copy of Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior that back in the early 1980s Americans who gave/were invited to dinner parties did too.

Yesterday’s letter-writer, who splutters that he has a duty to ‘protect’ his wife at dinner parties, is clearly a nutjob (if he even exists at all). But I was startled to read response after response stating that while LW was clearly crazy, they too found the concept of seating people not next to their spouses ‘scary’, ‘would be torture’ ‘brings me out in hives just thinking about it’.

So I’m just curious. Did any other Brimstoners grow up with this convention? If yes, do you still follow it? Or ever encounter it when invited out?

 And if no, would you be unhappy if you found yourself separated from your other half at an assigned-seating dinner?

(Please do give a clue to where you live/grew up, if that isn’t visible in your profile.)

I'm going to agree with oogyda about the health issue.

I think a good way to start the conversation is to ask about her cat, the one with the UTI, is kitty okay? on meds? Is she using the litter box again? Then you can ease into the odor with "I bet it's going to be a pain having all your carpets shampooed and treated for urine oopsies . . . "

If she says "I got someone coming out next week" then all is good.

If she balks, then gently go into the health issues.


It's always difficult to bring up a person's housekeeping. But from what you said it seems that she is aware of the situation. Maybe that's why she explained kitty's UTI.