Comment by gbjw

> Fun example from a friend: his family were extremely direct but his girlfriend’s family was very indirect. As a young naive guy he was having dinner with his girlfriend’s family and her father asked: “is there any salt” and my friend looked up at the glass salt shaker and said “yes” and continued with his meal.

Are we supposed to side with your friend here? The fact that he couldn't infer that the father might want some salt is, at best, very shortsighted and pedantic. It's roughly equivalent to a teacher responding to "Can I go to the washroom?" with "I don't know, can you?" -- except in this case it's not said in jest.