DEAR MISS MANNERS: Could you please advise me on the acceptability of blowing on one’s soup to cool it before eating? Is this a practice that can be done only en famille?

If it is ever proper, what is the right way to do it: to blow on a spoonful or on the cup or bowl? How gently or vigorously may one blow? If it is never proper, why not?

If it would be proper but for a family member objecting to it, which family member trumps: the one who thinks it disgusting, or the one who fears scalding her tongue?

GENTLE READER: No, no, no. You may not blow on your soup, not even if you are six feet apart from the nearest person.

The solution to steaming soup is patience. The most that Miss Manners will allow to speed the process is to permit you to fill your spoon and hold it just above the bowl while appearing to forget about it while you make conversation.

But do you not understand what a colossally bad idea it is to disgust someone with whom you live? If you persist in doing that, even in cases where etiquette rules do not forbid your behavior, it will to lead to something really scorching.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My live-in health care aide, a kind and cheerful person, has been dining with our family regularly for about a year. She is a former nurse, and joins the conversation with gusto when it turns to topics such as the toilet habits of cats (ours, hers and others’).

It may seem odd that such subjects arise at all, but this becomes easier to imagine when I add that I am nearly silent, owing to a speech problem stemming from a stroke. So my interruption, apart from being uncouth, is not possible. And one of our irrepressible sons, also a good person who has done much for me, is as likely as the aide is to introduce such topics.

The others at the table (my wife, our other son and our daughter) seem oblivious. I don’t want to chastise either aide or son, but at times, the discussion becomes animated, enthusiastic and profoundly unappetizing.

I have commented that such matters are better discussed at times other than at meals, but it does not result in any long-term change, and I find mealtimes stressful as a result. Can you suggest a way to encourage discussions of more appetizing topics in a nonaccusatory, but effective, manner?

GENTLE READER: Good manners always require attention to avoiding giving discomfort to others, never more so than when a person cannot give voice to his concern. Miss Manners would have thought a facial expression of revulsion would be enough to alert the offenders -- especially one who is trained to observe signs of impending physical distress.

But if you are not inclined to drama (and even Miss Manners would disallow anything graphic), you should have a private conversation with your wife or daughter asking for a gentle declaring of “No toilet talk” to cut off such conversations.

(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: Increasingly, as I scroll through social media, I see more and more GoFundMe pages. Many of the issues do require serious money, including funds for top surgery (removal of breasts for trans or nonbinary people), money for rent, insurance fees, mission trips and more.

Unfortunately, I feel unsympathetic and quite frustrated when these come across my page. Yes, I believe top surgery is a legitimate decision. I also believe it is an elective surgery, and asking for donations makes little sense. I would never ask for donations for a different elective surgery, like breast augmentation or liposuction.

We all have to pay rent. Just last month, when I struggled to pay my own rent, I applied for (and received) a housing hardship stipend and increased hours on my weekend job to make ends meet. If you didn’t want those insurance fees, you should have read the fine print before signing your name.

I wish there was some way to communicate that these fundraisers all seem like money grabs. Am I justified in my thoughts, or should I learn to be more sympathetic, and donate to these causes?

GENTLE READER: You are not likely to discourage money-grabbing as long as it works. So why are you even contemplating helping to make it work?

Distributing whatever funds you have available for charity by giving to whoever happens to ask is not the best way to support good causes. Unfortunately, many people feel pressured to do so, even if they sympathize less with augmenting breasts for the unendowed than with providing food for the hungry.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife says one should time the mailing of greeting cards (birthday cards, Valentines, etc.) so that they arrive on the special day itself.

I maintain that as postal deliveries may occur any time during the day, they should be timed to arrive the day before the event they are meant to celebrate. What sayeth Miss Manners?

GENTLE READER: That she is in awe that your wife can predict postal service to the day. Does she also know the recipient’s birthday plans? Surely, she wouldn’t want the card to arrive when the celebrant is making merry elsewhere, only to return too late and tired to retrieve the mail.

(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: My husband and I walk almost daily. During this coronavirus shelter-in-place time, there are many more people out walking.

Our understanding is that you walk facing traffic. However, many people are walking with traffic. When we encounter them, we always move away to give the proper social distancing, and they sometimes look at us like we are the protocol violators.

Are we? Can you please educate us (and them) on the proper side of the road to walk on?

GENTLE READER: If you are walking in the street itself, moving six feet away would put you smack into the middle of traffic. This is not a good idea -- even now, when there are fewer cars on the road. Miss Manners hopes you will find a safer path.

On sidewalks, moving over six feet would also go into traffic on one side, or onto someone’s property on the other. So it is incumbent on both parties to move, three feet each.

But how do you encourage others to do their part? Well, not by shouting, “Move!” with or without expletives. Discourtesy only adds to the distress.

First, you move as far as you safely can. Then smile and perform the gesture that a theatrical headwaiter would use to accompany his saying, “This way, please, madam, sir.” It is an arm swing, with open palm and the arm moving from a vertical position to a horizontal one.

Practice, and do not omit the unctuous smile. People do not shoot accusing looks at headwaiters.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife and I are elderly, and we are often asked, “How long have you guys been together?”

This is usually directed to my wife, who has some cognitive issues that I believe the questioner has perceived. People who ask such questions to someone they suspect has cognitive issues are, in my opinion, low forms of humanity, and do not deserve a polite answer.

My wife usually hesitates and looks to me to help her out, asking “How long?” If they both insist, I turn, give the coldest expression I can muster and mutter, “I don’t remember.”

This ends the matter, but if it happens to be two women together asking the rude question, they start whispering to each other that I am a grouch.

GENTLE READER: Yes, that was grouchy of you, and silly of them. But “low forms of humanity”? Oh, please.

These ladies were not even really interested in your conjugal history. They were just trying, awkwardly, to make conversation. If they had any recognition of your wife’s problem, they might have posed their question on the assumption that long-term memory may survive when the short-term does not.

What should you have answered?

“Not long enough.”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In business correspondence, when I don’t have a name, I begin with “Dear Madam/Sir.” However, these days, not everyone is binary. Should I add “GF person” (as in gender-fluid), or “Human” or ...? Please guide me in being up-to-the-minute respectful.

GENTLE READER: You are to be commended for wanting to be inclusive. However, there are so many possibilities to consider that Miss Manners fears that an all-inclusive salutation would take up the entire paper, leaving no room for the content.

So: “Dear Client,” “Dear Acme Toilet Paper Company” or “To the Customer Service Department.”

(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.)