Send wishes, if not gift, even if you despise bride

Dear Miss Manners: Iamina pinch right now — my male cousin will be marrying a woman within the next week. I do not like this woman at all and so am not attending the wedding, partially because this family of mine is in El Salvador, while my family and I are in Canada.

However, I would like to send a gift, as I love my cousin and his mother very much. In this action I would still prefer to favor the groom to show my disapproval without being rude. What can I buy for their wedding gift? Gentle Reader: Are you seriously asking Miss Manners to suggest an insulting wedding present? Or are you thinking that your cousin wouldn’t notice that you sent something for him alone — and that his bride would be miffed, but yet not point it out to him? And that the family wouldn’t hear about it — in two countries?

All right, Miss Manners is getting carried away. It probably wouldn’t burgeon into an international scandal.

But it’s still not nice. You needn’t send them a wedding present at all, but at least wish them well if you hope to remain on good terms with your cousin. Dear Miss Manners: I have a very favorite ring that was a gift from my husband early in our marriage. Because of arthritis in my fingers, I can no longer wear the ring, and the setting does not allow sizing.

I would like to give it as a Christmas gift to my daughterin-law (whom I adore) of seven years and am wondering if it would be tacky if my note indicated that I wanted her to have it now, and then the ring is to be passed on to her daughter when she reaches 21. Gentle Reader: This is, indeed, a lovely present, but Miss Manners would like to loosen the string attached to it, just a bit. It would be more gracious to say that you hope that someday she will pass it on to her daughter. Dear Miss Manners: Why, in the traditional table settings, do knife edges face toward the plate when it seems more convenient to have them facing out? Gentle Reader: Convenient for doing what?

Miss Manners hasn’t forgotten the dinner table danger of which Cardinal Richelieu warned us (in 1669, but she has a long memory): that conversation can become volatile, and the diners are all armed with knives. He took the precaution of ordering the pointed tips to be blunted..

Knives are correctly set so that a leftward flick of the right hand positions it to cut what is on the plate. What else were you planning to do with your knife? Dear Miss Manners: My workplace has closed and in two weeks will reopen. I’ll run into dozens of people who will ask, “How were your holidays?”

Three people I love have died in separate events over the past month, and another family member is gravely ill. How do I answer? “Fine” is not possible. “You don’t want to know” just invites more questions.

Is there a friendly way to say, “Please don’t ask,” to a casual questioner? Gentle Reader: It is strange that “Don’t ask” provokes the reply, “Why — what happened?”

You should therefore practice a vague answer such as, “Not great, family illness and such.” Oddly enough, this is less likely to produce an inquiry, especially as you should head one off by immediately following this with, “How was yours?”

It will suggest to others that the proper mode will be complaining, rather than bragging. Listening to whatever they can muster in the way of woes will be the price of your privacy.