With or without garnish, Sir?

Scrumptious food, flowing wine, reminiscing giggles, and the ever atentative professional waiting staff all contribute to another enjoyable night out.  At the end of the satisfying meal, the final course arrives on its delicate silver presentation plate as the waiter can be glimpsed scurrying off to the next table, like a post man with an ever growing puppy pit-bull snapping at his heels.  The freshly-made bill delivered to your table nowadays is calculated and presented to company standards, automatically garnished with an 'optional' service charge added into the large-print, bold 'you-must-pay-me' total figure. 

This language comprehension confusion over the often missing prefix 'un' to the 'optional' is ever expanding, as is the practise of reallocating service charge payments away from the intended recipients, who are all now in serious need of heel-protecting-socks, for things like topping up managers’ wages, as highlighted by the BBC special report on The Dorchester Hotel.  Maybe the only option for those majority customers who are happy with their table service is to have pen at the ready to cross off the un-'optional' charge and return to the tradition of leaving a cash tip.

By Rebecca Griffith