The Starbucks size thing used to drive me nuts, then I read that they had started with short and tall (inspired by Italian practice supposedly?) and their American customers kept demanding larger and larger coffees until we got where we are today.
You used to be able to order “short” off menu, but I’m not sure if it still works.
Tipping always makes me nervous. A Swiss friend told me you don’t tip in Switzerland and every book says you don’t tip in Japan; but then I see confident assertions by Americans that nobody tips in Europe and (since that’s wrong) it makes me wonder if what people say about Japan is wrong too. In Germany a normal tip is about ten percent, I think. The waiter tells you what you owe and you round it up to something near ten percent (I think that’s normal, though I’ve seen much smaller and much larger tips given). I much prefer the English way of leaving money. In Germany you have to do maths on the spur of the moment when tired and possibly slightly drunk. I sometimes end up giving an over generous or stingy tip because I get confused.
What do you understand about the English system? What you describe as the German one is what I understand happens in England. Maybe I’m stingy but adding about 10% I think is normal in England. 15% is too hard to figure out and starts getting quite a lot!
When I lived in England over thirty years ago, 10% was normal, I think. It could be it’s gone up since then, or it could be the people I knew then were less free with their money. Back then there were a lot of people who had to be careful with their money.
15% is probably too much, yeah.
I can agree that 10% seems more normal. As I said, lockdown has taken its toll on my memory.
I think tipping has become very confusing. There is often a “service charge” added to the bill for you and with cashless payment now it’s quite hard to know what’s really going on or even how best to tip. Some places have 10, 15, 20% buttons on card machines, I suppose like wine list on the basis that no one will want to be seen to pick the cheapest one so they just go for whatever is in the middle.
Y’all should come to Australia. Almost nobody tips anyone for anything. Our supermarket item prices already have all taxes included… basically if you see a price listed on anything other than a vehicle or a house it’s usually the bottom line, and even then sometimes vehicles will advertise the “drive away price” which actually is the bottom line too…
…very simple down here 
I ensure you you do, at least in the french part where I stayed.
So you, a tourist, are correcting the testimony of a local? Interesting.
Who said I was a tourist?
Maybe it was a miscommunication?
This implies short term. “Where I lived” would have a more permanent meaning if you were there for more than a few weeks/months.
You can’t stay long time? Ok my english maybe bad but I stayed like 10 years worked as cook and my girlfriend then as waitress…
I mean, you can stay a long time… when you’re living somewhere 
one might stay at a hotel, or with friends… but if you’re in the same place for a decade, it would be much more common to say you lived there (my mistake, ignorant white boy forgets sometimes that people on the internet don’t always have English as a first language haha)
The fact is I moved a lot in my life and many times I had honestly a much better knowledge of a place that I explore carefully as some locals in their life routine. Just saying…
Back about tips in Swiss, my knowledge of the Italian and German part is too limited to infere any statement so I’m careful to limit my words to what I’m sure (the french part)
I’m not surprised. My friend was from the German speaking part and we were in Oberengadin when he said it, but I don’t know if it even applies there. He might have been like the Rudy Vallée character in The Palm Beach Story who is under the impression that “Tipping is unamerican”.
I appreciate your reference to The Palm Beach Story. I’m surprised to find anyone today who has even heard of that splendid comedy.
In the matter of sandals and socks, I would imagine that in areas where mosquito populations go unchecked you may well appreciate the protection of socks even as you’re wearing sandals to cool down. The spirit of compromise can liberate you in surprising ways. Still, if you do this in Canada you will indeed be committing a fashion faux pas.
It’s been said that if you want to empty a swimming pool full of Canadians, you simply say, everyone out of the pool please. I admit I’ve never seen this supposed phenomenon and I’m inclined to be skeptical.
Socks have never protected my feet from mosquitos though…
This would work for emptying a pool of Japanese for sure.
It’s really nice when everyone simply does as asked, instead of immediately going “I heard what they said, but I decide it doesn’t apply to me”…
I guess that latter sentiment could be a characteristic of Dutch people 
I’m just going to leave this here: