That thing where you think you're being polite but really it's just a bit mad

Just wonder when it becomes ingrained though? I remember I was still a primary school when I was invited to a friend's house and had to tackle greasy fishfingers followed by cold rice pudding with seeded jam on it. I felt really sick and everybody had finished eating at least 20 minutes before me. When asked by the mum if I was ok I nodded & ploughed on!
Got worse though. After school I went with 2 friends to the local bakery shop where they also sold crisps etc. First girl requested a meringue & was served. Second girl said she wanted the same & meringue was duly handed over. I had picked up a bag of quavers but was so small I could barely be seen over the counter. The lady serving( seemed big to me) said "And I suppose you will be wanting a meringue too!"
I paniced- thought I would appear rude if I said "No" so I nodded before realising to my horror I did not have enough money for both. Ended up walking out with both. Far better in my child's mind to committ unplanned theft than offend the lady at the bakery by telling her I did not like her meringues!

Oh you lot have made my day! Laughing so much I was wheezing & crying & DD came downstairs cos she thought I was ill! Thank you, thank you! 💐

What a fabulously polite Dad! That should feature in an etiquette handbook

Eek to brains in a handbag though!

About 1977 our family of four were on holiday in France with another family of four. Dad - the only French speaker in the group - insisted on us all eating lunch where the locals ate and where a little old French lady dressed all in black did all the cooking and serving. On Dad's recommendation eight of us order Coquilles St Jacques - we were all used to pretty bland food seeing as this was the 1970s but this dish was incredibly rich and none of us could eat it. My Dad was so insistent that we didn't offend the sweet old French lady who had cooked them and so he ate all eight!!!! I'll never forget as a 13 yr old - being incredulous as I watched him force each one of them down. Then he made us kids go into the kitchen and thank little old French lady for such a delicious meal!

On the same holiday he mis- translated brains as steak on a menu somewhere else and we all ordered what we thought was the steak. Even he couldn't get us out of that one so the brains were all duly wrapped in napkins and secreted away in the two mums' handbags so as not to offend the owner of the restaurant.
We still laugh about it now.

Our elderly piano teacher called DSIS and I the wrong names and even wrote them on our notebooks. Not just abit wrong but really really wrong e.g. names Catherine and Elizabeth he called us Kelly and Tracey (names changed but you get the gist).

Being English and 8 and 10 we never said anything. The old chap was so old my mum got a call to say we couldn't have our lesson this week or indeed ever again as he had dropped dead.

Actually Dsis and I used these names as code when we were older if we were ever in a disco and grim men approached us we would say our names were Kelly and Tracey

Our builders called me Sheila for a whole 20 weeks project. My name is boho v like that. At the end we discovered it was because whenever they asked for a decision on anything my husband would say 'I'll check with she who must be obeyed'!

Oh well done indeed, Nabootique, this thread's come full circle. I'm laughing at your Britishness of conceding a small Americano... I would have done that - and bitterly regretted not holding out for a latte.

Before I was pregnant I always used to order a flat white on my way to work. Once pregnant I couldn't handle my coffee being so strong so I had to switch to latte.

One day, very heavily pregnant, I ordered a latte and the guy making the drinks did me a flat white out of habit. I felt very un-British pointing out it wasn't what I ordered but by that point my heartburn was off the scale, I'd never have managed it. He, bless him, was mortified and quickly did me a latte... Then insisted I take both! I had to palm the flat white off on someone at work

I have a colleague who was the only football fan in the workplace. He met my DH and they talked football. Now he thinks I am really knowledgeable and very interested in the minutiae of football team selection. I don't have the heart to tell him I have no clue who he is talking about.

"Hey Pax, have you heard Liverpool are going to buy Ruis? What do you think?" Erm, I dunno, he is good in midfield, but getting on a bit I think (desperately hoping). "No, no, Ruis is a goalie and he is 22. You are mixing him up with Rieos." Oh, yeah, of course, well, HE is fabulous, very promising young athlete. (Colleague goes away satisfied and I am ashamed)

My mum thinks that DH really loves bread sauce with Xmas dinner. So makes a massive thing about making it, and asking him 50 times how the bread sauce is. He doesn't like it, and has in fact, never even heard of it before my mum decided this!! (No-one says a word....)

My NDN calls me the wrong name. I don't know where it came from but it's nothing like my name. Think like the difference between Rachel and Catherine or something.

He first called me it not long after I had DD (she's 10 months now) and I was too tired and worn out to really register and correct him. And then it wore on. And I still didn't say anything. A friend even came round and spoke to him and said she was visiting us, and used the right name for me, and NDN did get it for a bit but then went back to the wrong name.

I still haven't said anything. I'm not going to. DH thinks I have to. He is wrong

This tread makes you think how many people am I calling by the wrong name and not realizing?

This thread reminds me of Rodney and Trigger!

Suzanne, I presume if I was discussing catering arrangements for a weekend away with you, you'd feel able to say that you were vegetarian. For some reason my SIL did not. I'm really not very scary.

Lying just reminded me of another of my Motherisms.... (I think I've told this on here before)

I'd taken her to Dunelm for some hideous cushion covers or some such like. As we came out there was a man sat outside with a charity bucket at his feet drinking a cup of tea from a polystyrene cup. Mum stops and fishes out a pound. It was all a bit slow motion, I knew what she was going to do but couldn't stop it so I just stood open mouthed as she threw the £1 coin into his cup of tea. His face was priceless. As I scuttled away I heard Mum say "Well never mind dear at least when you finish your tea you'll find a pound!" I could have died.

I was only about 8 at the time by the way.

Following on with the wrong name theme...
We live in the Middle East. My friend has had a driver for almost a year that she's called by his nickname of ketchup. He came to pick me up a couple of weeks ago and I asked where he got his nickname from. He laughed and said that his nickname wasn't ketchup it was Kisha and she's been saying it wrong (kisha is Arabic for hairy - he's bald). It's not just a British trait!

I was once on holiday and got friendly with a few children there. One of them was called 'Alex' and for the whole 2 weeks, I never worked out whether it was a boy or a girl. Didn't matter but just awkward when referring to them and not knowing whether to say 'he' or 'she'! How do you ask someone what sex they are?!

Leslie lots of people think vegetarians eat fish
I love "why do you keep calling me Tim? " :o

I was on a course whigh was about 50% friends and 50% other people. One of these others was rather well spoken, but not the brightest spark. One of my friends mentioned him to me in conversation and I said 'oh, you mean Tim nice but dim?' He was then referred to as Tim by our group of friends (some may have actually thought he was called Tim). He then began to spend more time with us and politely corrected people who accidentally called him Tim. However, when we went out to celebrate finishing our end of course exam, he'd had enough and silenced the whole group with, 'why does everyone keep calling me Tim?' Obviously we couldn't explain, had to look at our shoes and shrug.

Apocalypse I honestly never thought of that

Or in the spirit of the thread, maybe I should have persuaded my parents to move to Three Miles Away Village so as not to inconvenience my lift-giver.

In one of my old jobs there was a supervisor whose face I'd always found very difficult to read. Apparently she thought highly of me, but you wouldn't have known it from her face IYSWIM. One day she exclaimed to me "Elderly, your shoes!" I'd bought a new pair and completely misread her face so thought she was complimenting them. I went on for a good 5 minutes telling her where I'd gotten them from, how I'm fond of that style for work as they're easy on the feet and quite smart, etc. I nipped to the loo a little later only to see I'd actually worn shoes from two different sets to work! I had lots in that style in all different colours and patterns and obviously hadn't registered that they weren't at all the same. And she sat there letting me rabbit on rather than burst my proud shoe bubble

But then, I've lost count of the number of times DM will be relaying a conversation we were both part of to someone and not only completely fabricate whole sections but also take credit for things I'd actually said. I don't say anything either, just sit there nodding and joining in as if her version is accurate so I'm just as bad.

Lying, I just can't. I'm sorry. I can't bring myself to talk about [shit who is she again?] dear old [fuuuck, Liz, I want to say Liz] ... I'm sorry. Can we just leave it there and never mention it again. Ever.