DEAR MISS MANNERS: As a difficult part of my job, I am required to dismiss students who fail to meet academic standards. Such a dismissal is done in person, but it must be accompanied by a letter detailing the specifics of the situation and the action taken.

I continually struggle with how to end such letters. Closing the letter with "Sincerely" or "Regards" seems to me too pleasant for such a negative letter, but closing the letter without any valediction seems too cold and abrupt. I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter.

GENTLE READER: Is it your thought that unpleasant news should appear in an unpleasant format?

"Sincerely yours" and the slightly stiffer "Yours truly" are conventions, which is to say that they convey neither warmth nor coldness. That is a great advantage conventions offer -- neither the writer nor the recipient needs to analyze them. Miss Manners hopes that you have not balked at addressing these students as "Dear," on the grounds that you don't love them.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A dear friend has recently written me with some bad news concerning her health. I would like very much to express my continuing thoughts and prayers for her, without falling into the "me-me" trap.

For example, I don't want to say, "I was very upset to hear that you have X disease." My feelings, after all, are not what is important in this matter. But I am at a loss as to how to express my support and concern.

GENTLE READER: Expressing sympathy and affection do not constitute the all-too-common me-me reaction that Miss Manners commends you for wanting to avoid.

Me-me would be announcing that you had troubles, too, or that you knew of worse cases, or that you knew just how your friend felt, or that you were sure things were not as bad as reported, or that you advised her that pulling herself together and thinking positively would make her problem disappear.

Expressing your own sympathetic feelings is quite a different matter. It is a comfort to know that people care; your dear friend would hardly want to think you unaffected by her news. Once you have conveyed that, you will be right about dropping the subject and allowing your friend to speak of her feelings -- or not, as she chooses -- knowing she has a deeply sympathetic listener.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: The other night I was dining with a lady friend at an outdoor table at a nice restaurant. During the meal, the elegant lady accidentally knocked her purse off the side chair, and the contents of the purse spilled across the concrete patio. As a gentleman, I did not feel comfortable diving under the table to fetch the possibly private contents of her purse. At the same time, I did not feel comfortable sitting still while the gentle lady crawled under the table without my help.

As may be typical in these sorts of situations, paralysis took over and I did nothing but sit there. What should I have done?

GENTLE READER: Ask the lady at the time, rather than Miss Manners after the fact?

While appreciating your delicacy, Miss Manners wonders why she is drawn into the situation. You could have said, "Please, let me help you," and refrained from doing so if the lady squealed from under the table, "No, that's all right, I've got it all."

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Can you please tell me when it is appropriate to lick or tuck the flap of an envelope on a card? What is the thought behind either?

I'm a tuck person, unless money or a gift card is enclosed or when mailing; my daughter is a lick-every-card person. Please end our 20-year battle!

GENTLE READER: Only if you promise that you and your daughter have the next topic of debate lined up. Miss Manners would hate to be the cause of the zest going out of your conversations.

Have you noticed that wedding invitations come with two sets of envelopes, but only one of them is gummed? This is because envelopes are sealed when they will be handled by strangers, as the outer one is, but the inner one is not.

The strangers, in such cases, are our friends at the post office. But if an envelope is handed from its sender to its intended recipient, or put in the hands of a friend to be delivered, the flap is only tucked in, the latter instance being a sign of trust that your intermediary will not peek.

So basically, you win. Miss Manners' condolences to your daughter.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: This is a first for me. My husband and I have been invited to a renewal of a couple's wedding vows. There are two squares on the return card. One says we will attend (and how many); the other is my "first": "We cannot attend and wish to extend our congratulations." Our "congrats" were written for us. Is this the new normal for responses?

Also, we didn't recognize the names of the Mr. & Mrs. and asked our kin and friends. We finally discovered the "Mrs." is my sibling's granddaughter, whose married name I didn't know. This is, apparently, their first anniversary. Yes, they're very young. Any comments?

GENTLE READER: It seems part of the trend whereby wedding hosts are taking over the functions of their apparently untrustworthy guests.

After all, why do people who issue invitations feel that they have to answer them as well, with a form requiring only a check mark and a signature? What is more, many of these cards refer to declining as expressing regret, without consulting the actual feeling of the recipient. And few couples nowadays would dream of letting their guests choose what to give them as presents.

So Miss Manners supposes that they might as well offer themselves congratulations on behalf of the guests. As brides and bridegrooms like to say: It's their day. Guests have increasingly become supernumeraries whose direction and lines the beneficiaries supply.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How does one reply to an invitation while one is in mourning, from deep mourning to almost the end of a mourning period?

GENTLE READER: By thanking the would-be hosts and saying, "I'm not going out socially now; I'm in mourning."

Miss Manners is afraid that you must keep repeating this while they lecture you about how the living must go on living, the deceased would have wanted you to go out, it's time to achieve closure, and so on. Please don't let it get to you.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: While at a family reunion on the opposite coast, I took my brother to the airport 100 miles away. I called a friend (female) who lives 20 miles from said airport, whom I met years previous, and asked if she would like to tag along.

Though we have kept in touch, I have never as much as kissed this woman and haven't been in her presence since we met.

When we arrived to pick her up, she was incensed that my brother didn't immediately get in the back seat, knowing that she was coming out, and said that, as a woman, etiquette would require him to do so.

I am not in a "relationship" with this woman, so to me it seems that would just label her as a friend, which has no gender limitations.

Since my brother was the one I was performing the service for, it seems as if the front seat was his, and it was his choice to relinquish or not (which he did after an intense spat, only out of respect for me).

The aftermath has caused mild friction between my brother and me, as well as impacted my relationship with my platonic female friend. What would etiquette dictate as the proper protocol?

GENTLE READER: Etiquette dictates that you look at this situation for what it was, and not confuse it with your and your friend's peculiar ideas about gender. Miss Manners hardly knows which claim is more askew -- that gender is the paramount factor here, or that gender counts only when there are kisses.

Your friend should have sat next to you because you had proposed the driving time as a visit, and it is awkward to hold a conversation from the back seat. Had you wanted to spend the time chiefly with your brother, you should not have invited a guest.

So you both behaved badly, as did your brother, squabbling to keep what all of you apparently consider a place of honor. Had Miss Manners been in the car, she would have been tempted to say, "Now, children, behave yourselves, all of you, or I'm turning this car around right now."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it proper to send a sympathy card to the family of a person who committed suicide?

GENTLE READER: No; a heartfelt letter.

At least Miss Manners hopes that this is the point you wanted settled. Surely you are not questioning whether this family is in need of sympathy.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: If you tell someone that dinner is at 6 p.m., that you will sit down to eat at 6 p.m., what time should you expect your guests to arrive?

GENTLE READER: Late. If they followed your instructions, they would all be backed up on the front porch, and it would take a while to get them all through the door and to the table.

Miss Manners is no proponent of lateness, especially when it is ridiculously called fashionable. But have a little regard here for human nature and traffic. If you want to serve dinner at 6, invite your guests for 5:15.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)