Bare cheek: Etiquette with Hetty Kwett

Our columnist solves your social behaviour problems in a trice

Dear Hetty,
I received several unwanted items for Christmas from friends and relatives. Though it was kind of them to think of me, I have no desire to keep these items, and I was wondering what the correct etiquette would be vis a vis disposing of them. Would it be acceptable to sell them on eBay? Failing that, should I donate them to charity?
Fergus Culpepper, Aldrington

Dear Fergus,
According to Debrett’s, the correct course of action would be first to write a letter to the gift-giver, thanking him or her profusely for the gift, assuring him or her that it is just what you wanted and that it is perhaps the nicest, most thoughtful, and most appropriate gift you have ever received. Secondly, jump up and down on the gift and throw it in the bin. The trouble with selling on eBay or donating to a charity shop is that the person who gave you the gift may spot it for sale, in which case you would, of course, have to commit suicide. Hope this has been of help.
Hetty Kwett XXX

WHAT WE USED TO SAY

An occasional series in which we struggle to remember the original, simple, once common terms that have been abandoned in favour of overblown abominations.

WHAT WE SAY NOW: “Maturation”
That’s right – maturation. Not saturation; maturation. Is it wrong to have a purely aesthetic objection to changes in our language? Should we have no concern for the sound as well as the meaning of our words?

Or are we meant to witness this degradation with a shrug of the shoulders, like villagers in a charming hamlet swamped by a hideous housing development, or those communities torn from their old terraced streets that are forced to live in it?

WHAT WE USED TO SAY: “Maturity”