January
30, 2022
There was a letter in the Miss Manners column yesterday,
wherein a reader asked Miss M. to remind hosts to leave plungers near the
toilet, so that guests didn’t have to rummage around in closets or go out and
seek out the host. (Leaving me with several questions, but that’s beside the
point.)
Miss Manners replied with one word: “Deal.”
I thought that the economical answer was funny. A younger person said, “Yeah, but I think the guest has a point.” I was a bit surprised that she thought Miss Manners was disagreeing with the reader; then I realized that, where I was interpreting Miss M’s answer as, “It’s a deal,” the other person was interpreting it as, “Deal with it,” which is a maxim often used these days.
Navigating the evolution of language can be tricky.
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