Don’t Rush To Medical Judgment

Dear Miss Manners: Is it ever impolite to acknowledge someone’s suntan and/or sunburn?

When an acquaintance has been severely sunburned, I tend to make small talk and say, “So, been playing a lot of golf lately?” or “Been out on the boat a lot, eh?”

To my chagrin, I said this to a man who I later discovered had some type of skin disease that made him appear to have a sunburn. I was horrified to think I had made a joke about something that he was probably very sensitive about.

I feel, however, that if someone is severely burned, they of course know it (as does everyone else) and could perhaps benefit from my small expression of sympathy and understanding for their pain.

Gentle Reader: Then allow Miss Manners to express her sympathy to you for being burned.

What hurts is that you meant so well. How could the kindly act of offering sympathy for pain cause pain?

If you tried, you could work yourself up into great bitterness over this and decide that there is no point in being humane and you might just as well turn callous. Miss Manners sincerely hopes not.

But she does want you to learn to distinguish between sympathizing with an affliction and diagnosing it. The first is polite; the second is not. You are not supposed to go around appraising other people’s physical conditions, even in order to apply the balm of sympathy.

There’s no use arguing that some things, such as a sunburn, are obvious, because your story shows otherwise. Miss Manners is afraid that you must wait for an announcement of discomfort before you offer comfort. It’s fine to practice kindness without a license, but not medicine.

Dear Miss Manners: If a guest is invited to come at a certain time, say 5 o’clock, is it permissible to arrive 10, 15, or even 20 minutes before the hour?

Some exceptional hostesses are ready ahead of time, but at 15 minutes before, some of us are scurrying about or even worse, not out of the shower.

Gentle Reader: Do you know how those exceptional hostesses spend their time before the appointed time for guests to arrive?

They settle happily into their own sofa cushions, glance admiringly around the party-ready room, and then leap to their feet with the realization that they forgot to put on the rice or to chill the wine. In the absence of last-minute panics, they panic when they realize that the arrival of an early guest will require them to get involved in offering drinks and food when they should be free to tend to the door. So while arriving early is not as bad as arriving late it is still a nuisance. Considerate guests drive around the block.

Dear Miss Manners: I personally would never tip with pennies, but one friend says that if pennies are left, it means bad service, and another said that if a tip is left with one extra penny, it means excellent service. What is the etiquette on this?

Gentle Reader: The last Miss Manners heard, pennies were legal tender, and while a few of them would be a rotten tip, enough of them could be a handsome one.

This does not prevent their being used for the purpose of conveying insults, but this is not a habit of which you can expect etiquette to approve. The way to complain about bad service is in words - to the management.

xxxx

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate