Madame Legarde, the glass of fashion and the nurse of form, (alias the most fashionable of milliners,) has comfortably assured me, that my figure has great merit, and only requires cultivation: this is to be done by tissues, brocades, and laces, which are now scattered round me in charming confusion.

After months of rumors, it was confirmed today that luxury giant LVMH will acquire Tiffany and Co, the storied American jewelry company, for $16.2 billion dollars. The deal is the largest ever in the luxury sector, according to The New York Times. To celebrate the deal, LVMH turned its homepage Tiffany blue today.

Although Shakespeare refers to “hums and ha’s,” sifting through etiquette manuals and public-speaking guides turns up scant evidence of a prohibition against ums, ers and uhs, which are profuse in the first recording of Thomas Edison’s voice, in 1888. Mr. Erard, rather ingeniously, traces the prohibition on um and other speech flaws to the advent of radio in the early 1920s.

I can hardly exaggerate the body blow to the Service such a decision would give. Nobody will believe in it again.