Parents should conduct their arguments in quiet, respectful tones, but in a foreign language. You’d be surprised what an inducement that is to the education of children.

Martin (best known as “Miss Manners”) uses dry, etiquette-inflected humor to make a point about children’s curiosity and motivation. The line imagines parents arguing politely—already an ideal of civilized conduct—but adds the comic twist of doing so in a foreign language so that children, eager to know what is being said, feel a strong incentive to learn it. Beneath the joke is a shrewd observation about education: intrinsic motivation often comes from immediate, personal stakes (wanting access to adult knowledge) more than from abstract exhortations. It also lightly satirizes parental attempts to “teach” by suggesting that children may learn fastest when adults aren’t overtly instructing them.