I think that for someone that is not a cigar smoker and has no real interest in the hobby, that I would just cut it for him.
I recently had an experience about this...After class one night, I asked my professor if he smoked cigars, his reply was sometimes. The reason I asked is that his name, appearance, and accent had me to believe he was from a country that may enjoy a good cigar, and I just so happened to have a few nice sticks on me
, so I handed him over a couple. After talking for a couple more minutes he asked me if I had a cutter, so I took out my cutter and handed it him. He proceeded to go through the motions of cutting the cap off and then slide the cutter down what seemed like an inch from the head. I immediately asked him if he would like for me to cut it and he said yes. I think that his smoking experience would have been different had he cut off the 'cap' where he was going to...