It is just a cultural thing; us US Southerners and you Brits tend toward that tactful circumlocution (one of the things I think Southern culture retains from colonial days), and people from elsewhere don’t really go in for that sort of thing.
For my part, it’s just a visceral “How rude!” kind of reaction, and then I have to remind myself that it isn’t a personal thing, and that’s just how they operate.
That sounds more like a pot luck or a BYOB, where you know in advance that you are bringing food or drink for everyone to eat. I mean for a dinner party, where someone invites you to their house for dinner.
Ah, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on…
If someone didn’t open the wine I brought, I’d assume they either thought the wine was not good enough for the meal, or too good to serve me. Either way, I’d be insulted.
No, I agree with Musicat. What she(?) describes is what I would expect for a dinner party.
You know, this is one reason I hate dinner parties. I know nothing about wine, I almost never drink it, and I’m sure anything I select will be “wrong”. And when someone gives me wine I’m at a loss - I’m not even sure I own the proper means to open a bottle. Then, when it’s open, there’s the obligation to drink it and really, more than one glass is just too much for me, and if I’m driving I don’t drink alcohol at all, not even a taste.
I dread “parties” where I drink a token amount of wine in an attempt to be polite then the host keeps filling up my glass and pushing me to drink, drink, drink. And I feel like I’m expected to say something about the wine and really, I have nothing to say.
At least, that’s my impression whenever wine is served.
What do you do if you gift a bottle of wine to someone then find out their teetotalers?
It is how it’s done in Spain; in fact, someone who doesn’t even pay for the coffee from the machine at work when it’s his birthday (or, if it’s provided for free, serve it) is viewed as extremely rude. They’re seen as perceiving themselves to be above everybody else. Many workplaces have an Official Procedure to deal with birthdays, such as “every week’s birthdays are celebrated together on Friday” or “birthdays will be marked on the wall calendar in the lunchroom so people will know not to bring their second-breakfast.”
Then again, we also think that the amounts of meals Hobbits have is about normal. There is a hypothesis that the short folk were based on someone from around here Tolkien happened to meet…
Yup, and it’s the same in Italy. “It’s my birthday, guys, I’ll treat you all to coffee!” And everyone adjourns to the cafe.
Ha ! Then, given Tolkien’s general world-view, here comes a theory about who and what are represented in the Scouring of the Shire…
Yeah I always felt like most people agreed it was wrong to hate others, yet it seems most people are very quick to tear somebody down for their mistakes.
The latter seems to me to back up the former: if you are the one to invite your mother or some other senior person out to dinner, then you are, for the moment, the patron. But hopefully not the seducer. :eek:
It’s funny you should say that, because that was exactly the description I used on our second day of vacation in Spain when my husband was laying out the normal local eating schedule–“So what you’re telling me is, Spanish people are basically really tall hobbits?”
We were stationed in Naples, Italy for a little over three years. We’ve never lived in base housing and had no intention of doing so in Italy.
We found an apartment in a new building near to the base. Our landlord(s) lived in the building in one of the apartments while the penthouse was being completed but while showing us the vacancies they offered the apartment they were living in if it suited us. It was too big.
We’d been there all of three weeks when they invited us (through their 12 year old son, the only one close to able to speak english and italian) to their beachhouse for Easter weekend. Being properly raised southerners we put together an Easter related thank-you gift. A week later the wife dropped by with a gift for me, a pearl drop pendant necklace.
We were invited up for every holiday and often just because. At least once a month, the wife would drop off a bottle of wine for us and sometimes a bottle of champagne, the real and pricier stuff that we wouldn’t have thought of buying.
One day she dropped by and I mentioned I liked her earrings, and she took them off and gave them to me despite my protestation that it was not necessary. Another time she came by and saw a stain on the area rug where someone’s kid spilt juice and came back with a stain remover to try to get it cleaned. (Didn’t work but it was appreciated.)
During August when Italy heads off for vacation we had a standing invite to the beach house to stay with the family. And we did.
I miss them. The wife spoke french and italian but no english and english was pretty much all I knew though I could understand the gist of conversations. She and I had some pretty fun conversations. Almost like we had developed a psychic link.
The second week we were there she invited me to go to Rome with her and a friend to check on an apartment her Dad owned. And I can’t speak the language! It was fun nonetheless. We had fun.
And waiting in a line? Unless it was the check-out line at the grocery it didn’t happen. Not as messy as the above-mentioned Chinese lines. When I went to pay my electric bill at the post office I noted who was there when I walked up and who came up after me. When all the folks that had been there before me had finished their business I knew it was my turn. Never had anyone push past me in ‘line’. Unless maybe for a caffe if the bar was busy.
I miss Naples.
There’s a great tool for social crises such as these. Its called “Google”. 
Seriously, I’m surprised people noawadays keep saying stuff like, “I don’t do X because I have no idea how to do Y”. You know, for a quite some time I ‘forgot’ how to tie a double windsor knot. What did I do? Looked it up on google. Sink clogged, don’t know how to get it unclogged? Google. Wife’s Honda Civic visor broke, need to fix it? Google.
If you don’t know about wine, you can learn (enough to get by, anyway). If you give alcohol as a gift and find out their teetotalers, I guess just apologize if they mention it. If I gave someone a bottle of wine, and found out they don’t drink wine and later re-gifted the bottle, I wouldn’t mind. Or I’d make it a point to bring something else next time.
Parties aren’t hard, guys!
Good, the thread hasn’t moved much since my last post.
My observation while in Naples was that folks were much friendlier and giving than I was used to here in the states. The South here used to have the whole hospitality thing going for it, truthfully I think it’s more a universal small town thing.
So… polite chaotic queues. Dinner out can take hours, waiting for each course. Stop signs were suggestions. Leaving a car length between you and the car in front of you will allow someone to merge between. Travelling by train is awesome.
Hostess gifts used to be the norm. It’s a thank you for the invitation. It can be anything.
Growing up in the southern US (Texas), I was taught from day one to say “Yes, sir” or “No, maam” as formal and polite replies to adults or strangers. I’m in my 40’s and I still can’t help using those phrases when I’m trying to be polite. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had comments from non-southerners about how this is somehow rude (“My dad’s the sir, not me!”).
On behalf of my shortest friends, thanks for the “really tall” part 
In Brazil this is even more rude, for some reason. It’s the same reason: making someone see old, but for some reason taken even more seriously. Quite a few pretty old ladies expect to be referred to as “moça”.
OTOH, it is still the norm for children to refer to adults as aunty and uncle, which I think is the perfect balance of lovingly familiar and respectful! 
Same as Gumpy, I get this too at times. I once had a person tell me “My name is Chris, not ‘Sir’!” As I had something I wanted Chris to do for me, I bit my tongue and didn’t mention the real reason I called him “Sir” - given that I wasn’t going to ever see him again I didn’t want to bother learning his name.