ABSTRACT
Politeness is a strange thing. Clearly the server at the Michigan restaurant where this exchange took place found Ellen’s reply, ‘You have to ask?’ and her ironic tone of voice, somewhat hard to interpret. There was a long pause while she looked at Ellen waiting for her to say something more. When Ellen said nothing and went back to studying the menu, the server finally looked at me. I raised my eyebrows and smiled slightly, and the server wrote the drink order on her notepad. Outside of New York, Ellen’s answer didn’t have the meaning of an enthusiastic ‘yes’ that it was intended to have. In Michigan, it seems waiting staff don’t expect the kind of ironic jokes from strangers that you might find in talk between close friends.
