Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm distressed about the proper usage of the words "mistress" and "affair."

I was raised to believe that an affair is between a married person and an unmarried person. If the unmarried person is a woman, she is referred to as the man's mistress.

Lately, I've read newspaper articles describing a relationship between two unmarried people as an affair. The woman in that affair is referred to as a mistress. This then raised the question of whether a person who is married, not living with his spouse, and dating a woman is "having an affair with his mistress" or just "dating someone."

Clearly, "affair" and "mistress" are disparaging terms, while "dating someone" is much more benign.

GENTLE READER: Which newspaper are you reading? Check the date. It is either old or vulgar. Or French.

Such couples are now politely described as partners or fiances, although not necessarily by the injured parties. For that matter, what does "dating" mean in a time of unromantic hookups and "friends with benefits"? Surely the less said to characterize them, the better.

Where Miss Manners agrees with you is on the pejorative use of "mistress." That was the traditional, correct, respectable equivalent of "mister." Splitting it into the abbreviations of "Miss" and "Mrs.," rather than the older abbreviation of "Ms.," has caused no end of trouble.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I ordered a seafood salad, and the shrimp arrived with the tails on. What is the correct way to eat such shrimp: with your fingers, or by cutting off the tail?

GENTLE READER: How about cutting off the restaurant?

Diving into your salad with your fingers is a bad, not to say messy, idea. So leaving the tail shells on makes it impossible for you to eat your entire costly shrimp. Miss Manners has never understood why restaurants have taken up this affectation.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We were invited to my longtime friend's son's wedding last year. We had planned to go, but COVID took care of that.

They have rescheduled for this year. We were notified of the date change, but all other details were the same. No choice to (re)accept or not.

The problem is, I just don't want to go. It involves airfare, hotel expenses, fancy winter clothes, etc. The only people we will know there are the parents of the groom. We don't even know the groom himself.

It's not an issue of money, just disinclination. I wish we'd said "no" last year. How can we politely decline for this year and keep my friendship?

GENTLE READER: What do you mean, that the invitation offers no choice about responding?

Any invitation, no matter how formal or informal, requires the recipient to respond. That people with no faith in the manners of their prospective guests make it easier by supplying a fill-in card does not cancel the guest's responsibility.

However, this does not extend to requiring an excuse. The slang term for negative responses is "regrets," because that is what you are obliged to express.

And while Miss Manners does not condone reneging after accepting invitations, the change of date gives you a fresh chance.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a college professor and have been teaching online since the beginning of the pandemic. I was corresponding via email with my dean about an issue with a student I had never met in person. My dean had met the student in person in the past, but not recently.

In the course of managing the issue, I became aware that the student in question uses the gender-neutral pronouns "they/them." When I learned this, I switched to using those pronouns. My dean continued using the masculine pronouns "he/him."

I was a bit flummoxed. I didn't want to correct my dean, because that seemed rude to her. On the other hand, switching to "they/them" without explanation seemed awkward (both socially and grammatically). On the third hand, I felt like I was letting down the student by failing to stand up for their gender identity to my professional superior.

I should note two things: First, the student's issue was not related to their gender identity. Two, my dean is the kind of person who would want to use a person's pronouns out of consideration.

What should I have done?

GENTLE READER: It seems clear to Miss Manners that your well-meaning dean simply wasn't paying attention, or mistook your attempts for the plural. A simple, "I believe that Taden uses the pronouns 'they/them'" should be all that is needed to correct the mistake.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it acceptable to cut multiple pieces of steak at a time, or should you cut as you eat?

GENTLE READER: The latter. Unless you are doing it for someone who otherwise might be in danger of choking, or stabbing.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: About three years ago, a good friend gave me a debit card as thanks for some favors I did for her. I had never had a gift card or debit card before. It was issued by a national financial company, at a major national store chain.

In the years since receiving it, I have not found one store willing to take it -- not even the chain where it was purchased! Their only reason is, "We don't take gift cards." I had thought that, since it says "debit" on it, it would be considered the same as cash.

I wonder whether this friend has spent money on these cards for others. Should I tell her that I've been unable to redeem mine? (I would do so solely because I would hate for her to continue to purchase these cards if they're just a waste of her hard-earned money. I would refuse a replacement gift, if offered!) Would that be similar to telling her a gift arrived unusable because it was broken?

GENTLE READER: A store that does not accept its own gift cards?

Miss Manners would think that your friend would definitely want to have this information -- even if it is three years after the fact. You could slip it into conversation casually, "You know, I never could get that very generous gift card to work. The store said they didn't accept them. Can you imagine?"

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Why is it bad manners to correct someone's grammar?

Being someone who dealt with the English language in their profession, we tried, and brought our children up, to at least say, if not spell, words and phrases correctly, and to use correct terms. Unfortunately, them being in school and being exposed to their peers' (and even teachers'!) mispronunciations, it didn't always work.

An example: When one of my children was in high school, they had to write about some subject. Though there were many spelling and punctuation errors and wrongly used words, the teacher gave them a high mark. I was appalled and asked the teacher why they didn't correct any of it. The reply: "Because you know what they mean."

As for the spoken word, there are SO many instances where people sound uneducated. I'm not saying one has to be an English major, but one should at least sound halfway literate. I, myself, have been corrected for mispronouncing words, and am grateful for it. I'd prefer to not sound like an idiot.

Why do people get angry at being corrected, calling others the "grammar police"? You would think they'd instead be grateful for knowing how to correctly pronounce a word. The correction isn't made to embarrass, but to educate.

I've seen people roll their eyes or smirk at someone who's mispronounced a word, when they could instead let them know the correct pronunciation. So this person will always mispronounce that word, forever having others roll their eyes or smirk. Which would they rather have: possible embarrassment for a second or two, or an eternity of smirks and being thought uneducated?

As for the written word, that would follow the spoken word. If you don't know how to speak correctly, you can't correctly write it.

Also, unfortunately, it's these same people who grow up to be educators -- teachers of every kind -- who perpetuate these same errors because THEY were never corrected for fear of offending them. So now we have adults who say things like "all the sudden" for "all of a sudden"; "so fun" for "so much fun" (one of my greatest peeves. MUCH. So MUCH fun); "for all intensive purposes" for "for all intents and purposes"; "meantime" for "in the meantime"; "doggy-dog world" for "dog-eat-dog world," etc.

GENTLE READER: You make a compelling case that we should all be educated. But that does not make it polite to point out that others are not.

However, as you have stated that you would be grateful to be corrected, Miss Manners trusts that you will be glad to hear that she noticed that you split infinitives, follow a singular noun with a plural pronoun, and use the objective case before a gerund.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I received an invitation to a wedding where the apparel is "cocktail dress/little black dress." Do we have to comply?

GENTLE READER: Yes to the cocktail part, not necessarily to the little or black. "Little" is relative, and if black as a suitable wedding color rattles you, as it does Miss Manners, she condones your wearing navy -- and pleading ignorance.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)