They Are Meant For Individual Use

Dear Miss Manners: I am sure you are familiar with those little scallop-shell shaped dishes used for holding small curls or balls of butter. I have a set, each dish being no larger than about 2-1/2 inches across, too small to accommodate its own server. Have pity on all of us who have inherited these but not the wisdom that should accompany them!

I realize that it is customary to put several of these dishes on the table, as one could hold little more than enough butter for two or three people. What is the correct way of transferring one of those pesky little butter curls from the butter server to your bread plate? Can you use your personal butter knife, even though it may have already been used for spreading butter?

Gentle Reader: Pity? Miss Manners has nothing but the warmest admiration for people who curl their butter. Whenever she tries, she ends up with a reject pile of butter shreds large enough to grease a pig. So she does not wish to make life even more difficult for you.

Nevertheless, she feels obliged to tell you that these are individual butter dishes, not communal ones, and are therefore used instead of bread and butter plates, not in addition; and that there is such a thing as a tiny butter knife, no bigger than a demitasse spoon, to go with them, which you could spend the rest of your life hunting down.

But as you know, bread and butter are only served at luncheon or informal dinners, where the people know one another well enough not to mind sharing. Butter provided for a potato is properly mashed into it with a fork.

So if you wish to place the butter dishes between guests and let them fetch the butter curls with their own knives, you have Miss Manners’ blessing. If you wish to forget the whole thing, those little dishes - like the tiny tabletop ashtrays you doubtless also inherited - are excellent for holding nuts.

Dear Miss Manners: It is my habit to keep a small evening bag with me when I go out, in case I need a tissue or some other item of personal maintenance. When my husband and I attended a holiday dinner at the home of friends, one man in the group, whom I’ve known for years, made an issue of my keeping my little purse with me. Others joined him in chiding me about this. I was made to feel uncomfortable.

Is there a rule about such bags? It very nearly spoiled my evening.

Gentle Reader: There certainly is a rule against bags spoiling your evening, even if they are your friends. But Miss Manners wonders how your purse came to their attention.

Did it keep slipping off your lap, as those pesky things are wont to do, and did you keep asking the annoyed gentleman to crawl under the table and get it for you? Did you haul a palette of colors out of it and apply them to your face at the table?

If not, what’s it to them whether you have your purse with you or not? Of course, a lady needs her handkerchief within reach. She never knows when she may need to shed a tear over the way her friends behave.