Below, a selection of my favorite entries — ABCs of things gone by: A: Acquaintance: "A polite, cunning catchall term that strikes the perfect balance between affiliation and distance".
To grasp that is to know them well, but to dally with charms and graces, to appraise them more and more exquisitely, is to be always at the first stage of acquaintance, superficial, polite, and ultimately bored.
"Where in Sweden are you from?" I've lived in the UK for long enough to know that the Brits are polite and that new acquaintances often ask this question.
Neighbors stood, mouths agape, as federal agents seized loads of cash from the home of Vikram Datta, a polite family man who acquaintances said was so concerned with the quality of Laredo schools that he moved his teenage daughters back to their native New York.
It's not polite to ask new acquaintances who they know.
While there is a place for polite business banter between acquaintances, it can waste both the prospective customer's time and yours to tread water in that realm for too long.
'Hartelijk gefeliciteerd met uw verjaardag' - Congratulations on your birthday- is a more polite version, appropriate for an acquaintance or your elder.
In conversations with acquaintances, the word "polite" never stops popping up.
If he was part of the family, he was the polite uncle who clasped your hand upon renewing your acquaintance, smiled and asked how you'd been like he really wanted to know.
When new acquaintances remember to give her the obligatory polite attention, with the question "What do you do?," and she tells them, they clearly wonder what she and the cellist who is married to her have in common.
Respect for an acquaintance even one year older than oneself requires the use of a polite form of speech.
