Include visitor in French conversation

Dear Miss Manners: We are American expats residing in France. Our children speak to us in French, and we speak to them in English.

Our neighbor’s cousin visited us from the U.S., along with her daughter. While my daughter and the American girl were playing, my daughter turned to me to ask me something and I replied, upon which our young guest turned to me and asked, “What did she say?!” I was truthfully annoyed, so I replied, “I was talking to (my daughter).” Should I have handled it otherwise?

Gentle Reader: While you may not like the manner in which she asked, this young girl was presumably in France hoping to learn French. Asking for a translation was not unreasonable.

If the conversation was private, you should have taken pains to make it so.

Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I got married last month. As we were making our rounds to each table of guests, we noticed that one of our friends “nocall no-showed.”

Then, later, we got an email from this friend saying she was sorry she could not attend, but that we should not have expected her to come without her husband.

Miss Manners, we invited this friend and her husband to the wedding. Our friend told us that she would attend, but that her husband would be away for work.

Four days before the wedding, our friend had called and asked if her husband could still come. We told her that we were sorry, but we had given his seat away. She said she understood and that she would see us at the wedding.

We don’t want to lose these friends, but we’re not sure how to respond to this email.

Gentle Reader: “We’re so sorry for the confusion, but we were under the impression from our last conversation that you would be attending. We would have so loved to see you and Horatio, but trust that we will get another chance soon.”