<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 03 May 2009 - Volume 05<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)</span><br>
===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">M.-L. Lessing</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:marless@gmx.de">marless@gmx.de</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Idiomatica" 2009.05.03 (04) [E]</span><br><br><div id=":e8" class="ii gt">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Hello Mel,</font></div>
<div>Â </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">in most Hamburg restaurants that I know
-- among them croatian and other "exotic" restaurants -- waiters of all nations
understand these knife-and-fork-signals quite well. They also understand the
"I-want-my-bill"-gesture, i.e. writing a little with your finger in the air. The
bill comes promptly. This seems to be international. </font></div>
<div>Â </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As to the waiters taking an interest in
the progress of your eating, I know several hamburg waitresses (yes, this is a
feminine, if not to say: motherly way of putting things! :-)) who, after a
glance over your shoulder on your plate, ask "Do you want a little more
sauce/fried potatoes/remoulade...?", which is decoded: "Have you done?", because
they often see that you are quite done :-) It usually produces the grateful
license to carry away the plate.</font></div>
<div>Â </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But nobody would ask "Are you still
working...?". They rather would say "Are you still enjoying on this?" This would
be a more truthful question (for there can be truthful questions too, as well as
truthful answers). Oh dears, do you know?: it is Spargelzeit here in
northern Germany! And the Spargel is brilliant this year. Alas, no New
Potatoes from our own farmers are available yet; this is always the case in the
Spargelzeit. That is what brings the Matjeszeit in June even closer to my
heart -- Matjes and New Potatoes from Holstein farmers, that is the very
thing...! </font></div>
<div>Â </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Because "It's the potato, stupid!" ;-)
And: Matjes needs no peeling.</font></div>
<div>Â </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Hartlich</font></div>
<div>Â </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Marlou</font></div><div class="im">
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: <span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Mel Vassey, DVM</span> <span><<a href="mailto:mel.vassey@gmail.com" target="_blank">mel.vassey@gmail.com</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Idiomatica" 2009.05.03
(02) [E]<br></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<div>
<div>On May 3, 2009, at 1:38 PM, Lowlands-L List wrote:</div><br>
<blockquote type="cite"><span style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; word-spacing: 0px; text-transform: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-indent: 0px; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal;">Interestingly,
as a kid I was taught that the polite thing to do when finished eating was
to place the knife and fork together on the plate, in the "6:30" position as
it were.</span></blockquote></div>
<div><br></div></div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">When I studied in Spain 21
years ago, I learned that knife and fork set down at roughly 4:00 & 8:00
meant you were still "working on it", while knife and fork set together at
3:00 meant you were finished. I've maintained the habit since, though I'm
fairly certain it's not recognized as signaling anything by most people here
in the US.</span></blockquote></div></div>
</div><br>
•
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