Not good form to monitor other people’s table manners

Dear Miss Manners: I find myself stunned at most people’s table manners. For example: breaking bread or rolls and buttering each bite, using a thumb to push food onto a fork, correct utensil usage (using a place spoon for soup), cutting up an entire entree salad at once, serving coffee after dessert, leaving napkins on the table at end of a meal, passing salt and pepper together, etc.

I wonder whether the etiquette rules I was taught, and followed in a very upper-level hospitality position, have been canceled.

Gentle reader: It’s never a good idea to monitor other people’s table manners. Miss Manners notices that you’re already agitated because you’ve mixed up what should and what shouldn’t be done, and thrown in some general rules. To clarify: Bread and rolls should be broken into small pieces and buttered individually; thumbs should not be used as pushers; the so-called place spoon is a mediumsized oval spoon that can be used (as the teaspoon should nt be) for soup or dessert; napkins should be put to the left of the plate at the end of the meal; and salt and pepper should be passed together.

Dear Miss Manners: I was invited to a wedding by a family who chooses to have no other contact with me. With the invitation came a bridal registry, most items being chances to finance aspects of the couple’s honeymoon abroad. I added up some of the other small choices on the registry, wrote a check for that amount and sent it with regrets that I wouldn’t be able to attend the wedding. The check went uncashed for six months. Then I got a thank-you card with my check enclosed, thanking me for my good wishes but with the suggestion that I donate the money to a charity of my choice. I chose not to respond. Your response?

Gentle reader: Well, we can rule out the possibility that these people were insulted by being offered money. Returning a present to its donor is also a traditional insult, although that, too, seems to be forgotten by those who ask their benefactors to try harder to please them. In this case, it does seem that an insult was intended, which makes it all the more odd that the family should have broken the estrangement by inviting you to the wedding. You were generous to send a present at all, but perhaps they thought you hadn’t given enough money. Miss Manners agrees with you that they seem the right sort of people from whom it is wise to be estranged.

Dear Miss Manners: I’m a 39-year-old single father of a 4-year-old girl. I’d like to know what is proper etiquette for taking her shopping for clothes and having her try them on in a fitting room. Last time, I went to the women’s dressing room, but I didn’t know whether I should go in. There were moms sitting down waiting for their children to come out of rooms. My child still needs a little help.

Gentle reader: It’s the parent’s gender, not the child’s, that determines which dressing room to use. If your daughter needs help trying on her dress in a shared changing room, the other fathers will accept her presence more readily than mothers will accept yours.

Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I live in Florida. Recently, some of our family came and stayed at our house for a few days. Because they drove, they weren’t sure when they were going to leave but told us it would be sometime Thursday. When we were having dinner Wednesday, we asked them if they had decided what time they’d leave the next day. They said no and that they might even stay until Friday morning. When I got up the next morning, they were gone. Is this any way to behave?

Gentle reader: The behavior is odd enough to warrant a follow-up call, inquiring if everyone is all right. Note that Miss Manners didn’t suggest asking if everything is all right. Your purposes are, first, to unravel the mystery and second, if they were merely thoughtless, to gently point that out. Asking after their health implies their behavior requires an explanation while showing concern for them. Asking about the more nebulous “everything” sounds like an invitation to air grievances.

To send a question to the Miss Manners team of Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin, go to missmanners.com or write them c/o Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.