His characters often talk in circles instead of direct lines, clucking and offering cups of tea.
His wife is too upset to talk about the death of her son and busies herself offering cups of tea and biscuits.
As Embarrass's cold war ambassador, Mr. Fowler has learned over recent years how to deal with reporters from as far away as Japan, unfailingly offering cups of coffee and asking visiting journalists if they've eaten or want to take their shoes off.
Then came Sept. 11, and with it an unusual question: What happens if the artist steps forward from the imaginative domain with an offering cupped in his hands like a little bird and reality runs it down like an 18-wheeler?
Visitors are greeted by a boy monk offering cups of holy water, accompanied by a ceremonial tap on the head with a bow and arrow and a 12-inch mahogany phallus.
We all think of sitting down with a cup of tea as something quintessentially English, so we thought that offering a cup of good old-fashioned Yorkshire tea and hospitality would be a start.
Even those opposed to his party welcomed him in, offering a cup of coffee.
"I probably shouldn't mention the war," she said amicably, offering another cup of tea.
The police finally subdued Mr. Roland with a stun gun as he approached an officer offering a cup of water.
The meaning is "both hands in unison," as in the gesture of offering a cup of tea cradled in the hands.
