Ever put your foot in your mouth? We've all said things we shouldn't have said. Usually it just comes out and then you realize, too late, that you've fallen victim to the classic "Open Mouth, Insert Foot."
We can all sympathize when a character in a book says the wrong thing at the wrong time. In this case, McCall Smith finds the humour inside the situation...
The small woman hesitated a moment... "My name, Mma, is Mma Magama, but nobody calls me that very much. They call me Teenie."
"That is because..." Mma Makutsi stopped herself.
"That is because I have always been called that," said Teenie. "Teenie is a good name for a small person, you see, Mma."
"You are not so small, Mma," said Mma Makutsi. But you are, she thought; you're terribly small.
"I have seen smaller people," said Teenie appreciatively.
"Where did you see them?" asked Mma Makutsi. She had not intended to ask the question, but it slipped out.
Teenie pointed vaguely out of the window, but said nothing.
[McCall Smith, Alexander. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (2007), p.111.]
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