Granny's Past Not As Scandalous As It Sounds
DEAR MISS MANNERS: When we asked Grandma about when she met Gramps, we got a lot more than we expected. She started talking about her various boyfriends, how popular she was, and how she kept them dangling, not even knowing for sure how many she was seeing at the same time.
Our Grandma was a slut! How are we supposed to take that? And Gramps just laughed! Does that mean that she's making it up?
GENTLE READER: No. It means that he knew the dating rules of the time, and that he realizes that you don't. And that he appreciates seeing Grandma, who was apparently a major flirt but nevertheless perfectly respectable, having a good time shocking you.
The key is that such popularity did not involve sex. On the contrary, if it had, Grandma would have been denounced as a slut by the very boys whom she had favored.
That's the nasty part. Really nasty.
But for the pure flirt, there were advantages -- besides the fun of torturing her admirers, Miss Manners means.
A flirt got to audition many possible suitors without any commitment -- and without those awful coffee sessions people complain about with dreadful types they find online. Instead of today's social media pictures and brag sheets, these would all be candidates they actually knew and were interested in getting to know better.
If not, they could express regret that the proposed date fell on their hair-washing night. But if so, they could choose among a range of suitors -- and then live happily ever after with the best of them. That would be Gramps.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I inherited my parents' silver service for 12, which is at least 50 years old. It has three types of spoons: a regular spoon with a small oval bowl, a soup spoon with a large round bowl, and a third type, which my mother referred to as an iced tea spoon. It has an oval bowl the same size as the regular spoon, but with a much longer handle.
I can envision using the third one if I were serving a dessert such as a parfait, for which the longer handle would be useful; however, if I am serving other types of desserts for which a spoon would be appropriate but which do not necessitate a long handle (such as ice cream), which spoon should I use?
GENTLE READER: Not the iced tea spoons. You are right that they are good for digging into parfait glasses, but you don't want to be that far away from a goodie that is right there on your plate.
Dessert spoons are oval, larger than teaspoons, but somewhat smaller than soup spoons. If you had oval soup spoons, instead of round, Miss Manners would have whispered that no one other that the two of us would know the difference.
Actually, you could probably pick them up cheaply, as there are not many more of us who use table silver. But etiquette advice should never come with a price tag. So many people provide teaspoons with dessert that you could get away with doing that, or using your soup spoons when dessert comes with a sauce.
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(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)
Copyright 2026 Judith Martin
COPYRIGHT 2026 JUDITH MARTIN
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