YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
May I pass on a tip? Engrossed, as I cur- rently am, in Frances Partridge's wonderful Memories (1981), I was pleased to see her refer to someone in the 1920s 'making water'. Surely this is a much more accept- able term than the current repulsive selec- tion available?
D. W. Wilts
A. Thank you for reminding me of this pos- sibility. I personally shall be switching to 'making water' the next time I am called upon to refer to the activity.
Q. Seated with my wife in a very crowded restaurant last Saturday (part of a famous London store), our table was jammed very close to that of another couple — a twenty- something woman and her thirty-something male companion. It was impossible to avoid overhearing their conversation (dominated by the woman), and it was soon clear that she could scarcely speak a single sentence without incorporating some pretty coarse swear-words: 'He was such an arrogant s—t that I told him to p—s off; told him I didn't give a f—k for his opinion'; `He was such an a—h---e he deserved her, as she was full of c—p'; 'They are all a load of
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Dear Mary.
w—ers.' The couple were clearly middle- class professionals involved in some aspect of the media scene, the woman being a classic example of an ET*. As it was impos- sible for us to move our table (the restau- rant was full, with a queue waiting), I won- der what you could suggest as a course of action to release ourselves from this boring and offensive situation.
G.McV., London SW1 *Executive tart.
P.S. We were very hungry.
A. You should have scraped back your seat and gone across to the table in a discreet manner. Bending over slightly, you should have murmured, 'Sorry to disturb you, madam. I am the security manager of the store, obviously acting incognito here. May I ask you to tone down your language? I'm afraid we don't allow swearing in the restaurant as yet.'
Q. I am shortly to return from a most enjoyable six-week spell as writer-in-resi- dence at Helsinki University. I am already worrying that I may bore or even alienate my friends in London by talking too much about Helsinki and Finland in general on my return. What would be the correct num- ber of times I can mention these places on a daily basis?
A.B., Helsinki A. The average person engaged in normal everyday social interaction speaks some 30,000 words per day. If you limit your use of the words 'Helsinki' and `Finland' to about a dozen times per day, you should run no danger whatsoever of alienating your English friends. Mentions of 'frozen sea' should be limited to five times a day; 'reindeer meat' only once a day.
Mary Killen
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