This reader email is from a Pennsylvania address, but I just k–n–o–w the writer is English:

Derb—Shouting is a good approach, but there are other, more effective methods. When we used to holiday in Spain in the ’70s, my father would simply add “o” onto the end of every third word or so, as in “May we have-o el bill-o?” It worked remarkably well, and we all escaped with our lives.