Right eating utensil needed when attempting tricky meal

Perhaps the retailer will take pity and be able to design over the engraving or otherwise detract from it. If not, it might be more tactful to keep it, turn it the other way around and get the couple another present.

Dear Miss Manners: I was raised to send thankyou letters as a matter of politeness. As I became an adult, I realized that it feels good to thank people with letters or cards out of sincere gratitude.

I was invited to join my boyfriend on a group vacation where our accommodations were paid for entirely by his close friends. While I enjoyed myself and appreciated the company of the group greatly, I also felt out of place at times and a bit of an inconvenience to the hosts and other guests, who were all close friends.

I did, however, wish to thank the hosts and expressed to my boyfriend the idea of purchasing a card and a small souvenir to mail to their home later. He sort of scoffed at me and, generally, seems to think it’s odd that I go out of my way to send thankyou cards.

I am feeling self-conscious about what to do. I feel the hosts were fairly indifferent that I was there, and my boyfriend seems to think formal thanks unnecessary.

I bought the card and a small souvenir anyway and decided I would think about whether to send it later — but now it’s “later,” and I still don’t know what I should do. Do you have any thoughts?

Gentle reader: If you want to feel forever out of place with these people, just be the odd add-on who takes advantage of a connection to accept generous hospitality and then vanishes in silence until the next such opportunity arises.

That your boyfriend believes that gratitude is unimportant is a bad sign. Perhaps he feels that the group is on such close terms with the hosts that they can take their generosity for granted. Miss Manners assures you that this will not wear well. There always comes a time when the most affable host begins to brood about being taken advantage of.

Dear Miss Manners: My boyfriend and I had a disagreement: He called our waitress “missy” and asked her how much she wanted for a tip.

I asked him why he did that. He said that “missy” is the same as “miss” or “ma’am,” and that it’s also polite to make sure your tip is adequate with the server. Is this true? I’ve never heard either before.

Gentle reader: That’s because he made it up. “Missy” should never be used — except, on occasion, with one’s own mouthy teenager (as in, “Would you like to try that again, but without the attitude, missy?”).

And no server in the history of the world ever wanted to discuss the tip, except perhaps indignantly afterward (as in, “I’m sorry, was the service not to your liking?”).

Please tell your boyfriend that Miss Manners recommends he find other, less belittling honorifics for waitresses — and that he join the ranks of the rest of us in being ever befuddled about what is an adequate tip (although 20% is still usually considered standard).