Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We received a wedding invitation that included a slip of paper detailing proper wedding attire in order for us to show respect for the church.

Specifically, women are to wear dresses knee-length or longer, with covered arms and no bosom showing. Hair is to be covered with a scarf or hat (if not, the church will provide a covering). Legs are to be covered with hosiery, and pumps, or a covered shoe with no heel is acceptable. Men are to wear a suit and tie, or sport coat and tie.

Is this appropriate? In our church, we figure that as long as we're neat and clean, God is happy to see us.

We will meet the demands because we love the bride, but it's leaving a queasy feeling.

GENTLE READER: It makes you queasy to think of dressing respectfully to enter a church? Or to attend a wedding?

Why?

Would it help if you let your clothes out at the waist? Miss Manners supposes not, if you really do not understand the part that symbolism plays in society and in religion. Beyond the obvious functions of protection and attraction, clothing serves as a symbolic way of conveying information. Religious texts and directives are full of mentions of clothing, sometimes in regard to modesty, but also in terms of respect for a place of worship.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife's mother passed away when she was 17, long before my sister-in-law and I came along. After his wife's death, my father-in-law remarried a wonderful woman that everyone loves and cares for deeply.

My sister-in-law has been calling the new wife "Mom," which makes my wife very uncomfortable. My wife also feels that it is disrespectful to the memory of her mother.

She spoke to her brother about how this really bothers her and found out that it bothers the brother as well, but he is not willing to press the issue with his wife. This has been driving a wedge between our families for about two years and it is getting to the point where our families are no longer social and our fear is that our children will grow up in the same town and not know their cousins.

Is my wife off base here? Is the sister-in-law being inflexible/insensitive by continuing to use "mom" as a title? If we need to discuss this with the sister-in-law, who should discuss it with her? Her husband or my wife?

GENTLE READER: Your wife is not off base in feeling this way -- only in supposing that she can dictate her choice to her sister-in-law. And to her brother, who, for whatever reason, has chosen not to make an issue of it.

Furthermore -- Miss Manners is afraid that you will have to explain this very gently -- your wife is now showing disrespect to her late mother. By making it the cause of a family feud, she is undoubtedly going against what her mother would have wished. No mother wants her children to be alienated from one another. Once your wife said how she felt, she should have dropped the matter.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am happily married to a man that I have waited for for a long time. My problem is that he thinks nothing of using the terms Hun, Sweetie, Love, etc., to female strangers such as waitresses, cashiers or bartenders.

He insists that he is just being polite. In my opinion, these are words of endearment and should only be used when addressing a loved one.

He thinks it's funny and that I'm over reacting.

I take it very personal and this hurts me. I would never think to do this to him. I have done this out of spite once to see his reaction, and he was shocked; however, he never brought it up.

Please help me accept his politeness or continue to express my feelings on the subject.

GENTLE READER: You would do better to express the feelings of others about this method of address. Your argument that those are terms that should be reserved for you is, Miss Manners is afraid, unattractive. And it isn't going anywhere.

Furthermore, it is not a valid interpretation in this context. Far from being considered polite, much less a sign of affection, this mode of address to strangers in service positions was condemned decades ago as being patronizing and sexist. In fact, this was so long ago that many young ladies so addressed now merely consider it a foolish, if somewhat creepy, habit of harmless old duffers.

Miss Manners recommends dropping the argument that as his wife, you have excusive rights to endearments. As his wife, you have the duty to alert him when he is inadvertently making himself look silly. He will not think your objection so funny if he understands that this habit makes him look old and out-of-it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the best way to get people out from behind my desk?

My office is not large, but there are two chairs and sufficient room not to feel cramped on the "public" side of my desk. The furniture is arranged to clearly delineate the occupant and the visitor sides of the room.

Still, co-workers will sometimes walk around to my side, and though I don't think any of them mean it aggressively, it really puts me on edge.

Sometimes it's necessary for us both to look at my computer screen, but I can swivel it out so that it can be seen from both sides of the desk. There is, in other words, no reason for anybody to invade my territory. How can I prevent this, short of a velvet rope?

GENTLE READER: People didn't used to do this. But wait, don't sink into a lament about the decline of manners. They didn't used to have to look at computer screens.

Please allow Miss Manners to rearrange your office for you. Swivel your monitor out beforehand when you know someone is coming who needs to look at it, and head off any approach to your desk by saying, "Please have a seat. You'll be able to see better from there."

But just in case, plant your briefcase on the floor next to your chair, with something else on the other side, if necessary. Then you can stop people by alarming them with a "Watch out!" before you re-direct them to the visitors' chairs.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Suppose one was a gentleman invited to a formal dinner party. One arrives at the appointed time, checks the seating chart in the hallway, picks up his tiny envelope and finds the name of his dinner partner on a card inside, and dutifully ignores her all through drinks.

Then, the butler (or gong) calls for dinner. Does a gentleman then seek out his dinner partner and escort her into the dining room, or should he escort his own escort into the dining room, leaving her to attend to his dinner partner's chair? I don't suppose this will be imperative to know at most of the parties to which I'll go this year, but one never knows.

GENTLE READER: No, one never knows, which, Miss Manners supposes, is why we all rush to get the mail. Some day, among the catalogues and bills, there will be a creamy envelope with an engraved invitation to dinner, and one should be prepared.

A gentleman's duty to the lady with whom he arrives consists of handing her out of the car, opening all doors in her way, helping her out of her coat, taking her through the receiving line, seeing that she is served a drink, and making sure that she has found people with whom to talk.

Then -- nothing until he reverses the procedure, parks her glass, helps her back on with her coat and so on. A dinner party should not be mistaken for a restaurant or club, where a couple goes to enjoy each other's company.

His duty to his dinner partner is first, as you point out, to avoid her. The idea is not to use up the supply of mutually interesting topics prematurely, because he will be talking to her for half the rest of the evening regardless.

He should manage to find her and introduce himself just before being called to dinner. He may give her his arm to escort her in. Having perused the seating chart, he will lead her to her place without having to lean over and squint at the place cards, push in her chair and pick up her evening bag, which has slid off her lap.

Meanwhile, his own lady will have been looked after by her own dinner partner. The original couple's shared fun comes after the party, when they will have twice as much gossip to giggle over as they would have had if they had unsociably stuck together.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper etiquette when eating in a coffee shop restaurant where paper napkins are used?

I put it beside my plate when the meal is finished. My friend said she had been told to put it on the empty plate. To me it looks awful to have a soiled napkin on top of a soiled plate.

GENTLE READER: Actually, it is not a soiled napkin so much as a bit of paper trash. But if we are to pretend that it is a napkin, as Miss Manners supposes we must in the absence of decent linen, you have identified the proper place for it to be placed.

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