Dear Mary…
This week, Mary is dealing exclusively with problems relating to table manners.
Q. When eating, my 15-year-old daughter knocks her teeth with her fork or spoon. She is very amenable to being corrected, but we are about to join a large house-party where we will all be eating en famille, and I can’t nag her in public. I can’t stand the noise, so I imagine that none of the other adults will be able to stand it either. What do you suggest, Mary?
C.H., London SW18
A. Choose an anodyne expression such as ‘Have you got enough salt?’ and collude with your daughter that when she hears this question it is a coded message for ‘stop knocking your teeth’.
Q. Possibly through many visits to the USA, but more likely through laziness, I find myself, in informal dining situations, holding and using my fork ‘not necessarily concave upwards’ in my right hand.
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