If your conversational skills are not up to snuff you could be unwittingly offending others, so keep these points in mind before you open your mouth:

• Never ask someone when the baby is due — the woman might not be pregnant.
  
• Generally, it's in poor taste to ask how much anything cost unless you're talking to a salesperson. If you really need to know about an item or you want to get one of your own, ask where it was purchased, not the price.
  
• Don't ask a mature man, "Is that your daughter?" The answer might embarrass both of you.
  
• Don't ask someone else's age. It makes you look intrusive and makes them seem like they're withholding information.
  
• When confronting someone with an issue, try starting your sentences with an "I" as in, "I've noticed that you've come in late four times this week. How can we solve this problem?" When you start a sentence with an accusation ("You did this . . . "), the other person is immediately on the defensive.
  
• Stay on topic and don't interrupt.
  
• When you finish somebody else's sentences, you're sending a message that the person's not smart enough to finish it on her own.
  
• Pay attention to how much you nod while someone else is talking or people may wonder if you're really paying attention or just exercising your neck.
  
• Good listeners don't do anything else when you're talking with them, they really do focus on you.
  
• Ask open-ended questions and give the other person an opportunity to expand on an idea.
  
• As a general rule, practice listening 60 percent of the time and talking 40 percent.
  
• Your words count for only eight percent of what a person remembers from a first meeting!

Mary Mitchell, etiquette author
The Mitchell Organization
215-574-1666
www.themitchell.org