In his blog, British etiquette expert William Hanson answers readers’ questions on how to behave at the dinner table. Find out what to do with your knife and fork during the meal if you’d like to talk and what to do with both after the main course. You can also read whether it’s ‘allowed’ to hold the fork in your right hand and the knife in your left.
Tongue twisters are a great way to practise and improve pronunciation. Give this one a try:
Graham’s great-grandma grew aghast at Graham’s grammar.
It’s amazing just how many different words you can find to say that someone has been fired. Businessinsider.com has collected 46 words.
So instead of saying that someone was fired, you can say:
S/he was dismissed / discharged / asked to go / released / sacked / asked to resign / given an opportunity to start a new job search immediately.
That last phrase is particularly crazy, don’t you think?
When I first heard the phrase ‘touch base’ years ago, I had absolutely no idea what it meant. A girlfriend wanted to ‘touch base’ with me. I’ve heard it many times since then, and so it’s no longer new to me.
‘To touch base’ means ‘to make contact’ or ‘to talk to someone in order to find out how they are or what they think about something’. The term comes from baseball, as far as I know.
It’s a term that I wouldn’t use in international business. I’d rather say, “I’d love to get together with you and talk about …”.
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” Theodore Roosevelt
We talked about dressing for a “Black Tie” event two weeks ago. But what would you wear if you were invited to a “White Tie” event? (Small hint: You might have seen how Lord Grantham from Downton Abbey dressed for an evening dinner!)
Don’t worry if you have no idea! Etiquette expert William Hanson is here to help you in his crash course.
