Dear Miss Manners: I understand the proper usage of “Ms.,” “Miss” and “Mrs.” as you have written about it, but what about “Mizz”?
I have heard this title used fairly often at my old elementary school, by a mix of teachers and students. It was a verbal title, never a written one.
I would have passed it off as a mispronunciation, had I not heard a fellow student explain it thus: “ ‘Miss’ means unmarried, ‘missus’ means married, and ‘mizz’ means it’s none of your business.”
While I would never want to snoop into a lady’s personal life, I also see no reason for anybody to be ashamed or embarrassed of their relationship status. Could you please inform me what the proper usage of this title would be?
Gentle Reader: “Mizz” is not a separate title, but a perhaps slightly southern pronunciation of “Ms.”
But Miss Manners wonders: Do you folks go around making snarky interpretations of “Mr.”?
Oh, that’s right — you can’t, because it is an all-purpose honorific for all gentlemen, regardless of whether or not they are married. So you can’t accuse them of being ashamed or embarrassed.
“Ms.” accomplishes the same thing. Like “Miss” and “Mrs.”, it derives from the once-respectable title of “Mistress,” which applied to all ladies — and was driven into disuse by just the sort of snarkiness you repeat.
Dear Miss Manners: This holiday season has been a particularly bad one for thank-you notes at my house. Even though we did receive a few actual notes, the vast majority did not send one, and one person even said, “We don’t do that”!
We also got two hastily written emails and a Facebook post, including some that didn’t acknowledge the gifts at all.
Has this become accepted practice? Do you think they are giving me a message that they don’t want gifts in the first place?
I’m not asking you to tell me how to get them to write notes; instead, I’m asking if I’m expecting too much from people in this electronic and busy world.
Gentle Reader: There certainly are people involved here who expect too much. They are the recipients of your generosity, who expect it to continue without any gratitude on their part. It will be acceptable to ignore presents when it is no longer accepted to give them.
So Miss Manners agrees that your offerings couldn’t mean much to people who have no response to them, and that you should stop annoying them with your generosity.
Dear Miss Manners: While I agree that not saying “thank you” is rude, I don’t see why that should mean that we stop giving them gifts. Choosing to give a gift is about the giver, while failing to say “thank you” is about the receiver.
Should we lessen ourselves as givers because we did not get a response to our generosity? Do we give only to get a response?
Gentle Reader: Presumably, you give in order to please the recipient. If you have no reason to think you have succeeded, Miss Manners sees no point in persisting.
Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I go grocery shopping two times a month. To expedite the process, each of us retrieves half of the items on the grocery list, and we use two carts. I always keep my cart right next to me, and only leave it to take a few steps down or across an aisle to retrieve an item.
My husband will leave his cart at the far end of an aisle for around a minute or so (occasionally more) when he’s retrieving a few items at the other end. He will also leave the cart in one aisle to grab some items from another aisle. I do not expect him to be quite as fastidious as I am about staying near the cart, but I have witnessed people having to jostle around his cart or having some difficulty reaching items that his cart is obstructing.
He insists that such occurrences do not happen as much as I think they do (which may be true, as I am often in another section of the store, getting the items on my half of the list), and that he isn’t separated from his cart long enough for his behavior to be rude. He does try to grab items quickly when he leaves the cart unattended.
My opinion is that his behavior is inconsiderate to fellow shoppers. Am I right?
Gentle Reader: Not having checked on him either, Miss Manners cannot know whether it is true that he rarely does this, and only for a few moments. She would therefore be inclined to trust his word — unless he also leaves his car in the middle of the street while he does errands.
Dear Miss Manners: My child attends high school with 2,200 other students. Today, a Friday, they found a gift card on school grounds in the dirt valued at $10 for a local ice cream parlor.
Since this occurred after a club meeting, school had been dismissed for more than one hour, the office was closed and the students and staff had departed, not to return until Monday.
Honesty is very important to me, so I am wondering if it is OK under these circumstances to allow my child to keep the gift card for their own use. I’m sure it can be turned in to the office on Monday as a lost-and-found item; however, the chances of the owner being found are slim.
Am I simply looking for an excuse to allow my child to keep it, or is keeping it acceptable?
Gentle Reader: Yes, you are looking for an excuse, and no, it is not acceptable.
Access to this ice cream is not melting over the weekend, Miss Manners feels obliged to point out. So there is no reason not to do the honest thing and turn in the card — hoping that no one will show up to claim it.
Dear Miss Manners: How much time should elapse before an RSVP is answered?
Gentle Reader: Long enough for the recipient to get to the nearest telephone, device or desk.
Dear Miss Manners: I was given an old mirror to use for an art show, as a feature in my booth where I sell women’s clothing of my own design. The friend who let me use it was vague about whether it was lent or given for that purpose. The mirror appears to be a part of an old armoire and doesn’t have any monetary or sentimental value. Three years have passed since the show. The mirror has since decorated my 5-year-old daughter’s room, where she uses it to dress, often checking her “look.”
The other day, my friend said, “Hey, if you have that mirror, I want it back.”
I am not a miserly person, but I kind of feel a little bit like a public storage unit. Do you have any thoughts or reflections about this situation, or am I totally in the wrong for feeling off about returning the item? Should I return it or let her know that I gave it to my daughter?
Gentle Reader: Three years is a long time for a mirror to be in doubt about its owner, and, assuming it’s not talking (other than to declare everyone who uses it the fairest of all), probably also too long to know who was in the wrong. Is it the owner for changing her mind, you for assuming that a loan was a present, or everyone, in that there was no mutual understanding at the time it was handed over?
Fortunately, it makes no difference. The owner now believes it was a loan, which means she is, gently or not-so-gently, accusing you of making off with her belonging.
The first order of business is therefore to clear yourself of the charge by apologizing and confessing that you misunderstood, as you thought it was a present. Miss Manners has no objection to your mentioning how attached your daughter has grown to it, so long as you then earnestly offer to return it.
If this does not discourage your friend from insisting on having it back, you will have to turn it over graciously if you wish to keep the friendship. It is worth remembering that what you consider uncompensated storage, she may think of as an uncompensated loan.
Dear Miss Manners: I’m a college freshman. My dad is giving my classmate and me a long ride, like two hours.
Should I sit in the front so that he won’t feel he’s being treated like a driver, or should I sit with my classmate in the back seat, since I don’t want to be rude to my guest?
Gentle Reader: You are right to think of yourself as a host in this situation, but Miss Manners has an easy solution. Put your classmate in the front. You thereby make it clear that your father is not the chauffeur, and your friend is not the baggage. It also leaves you free to swoop in to facilitate conversation as you like.
Dear Miss Manners: For well over a year now, I have been attending a managers’ meeting twice monthly at my firm. There are about eight persons in the group, and naturally it has evolved that we tend to sit in the same seats every meeting, where we eat lunch first.
Two meetings ago, there was a shift in the composition of the group: One person left the team and a new member joined. This person happens to be good friends with another person in the group.
Last meeting, the new member sat beside me. (The person who normally sits there didn’t attend, and no doubt wouldn’t mind anyway, as she is new to the group.) At today’s meeting, however, when I entered the room, her friend was in “my” seat and my lunch was placed further down the table. That person’s usual seat on the other side of the table was not taken.
What is the protocol here? Am I being overly sensitive to think she could have at least acknowledged that she had displaced me from my usual seat, of which she was well aware? Even a humorous comment would have made me feel better. Overly sensitive?
Gentle Reader: The tendency of meeting-goers to assume squatter’s rights over particular chairs leads to more misunderstandings in the workplace than Miss Manners likes to contemplate.
She could also note her astonishment that people who pride themselves on their businesslike, i.e., forthright, approach to life are so squeamish on the subject. If chairs are assigned, someone should say so; if they are not, then you should get on with the business of the day.
Miss Manners at least, feels better, even if she has not solved your problem. If we really must play musical chairs at every meeting, then Miss Manners coaches newcomers to arrive one minute before the meeting time — when most people are in the room — and ask in a loud, cheery voice, “Are there assigned seats for this meeting?” The agenda of the meeting can then be thrown out in favor of a lengthy debate on the question.
Dear Miss Manners: For a friend’s retirement party, the invitation did not include my husband, so he did not go with me. When I got there, I found that many couples (friends of ours) were there.
Everyone, even the honoree’s husband, kept asking me where my husband was. I answered that the honoree did not know my husband well, so he was not invited. I felt awkward and embarrassed. How should I have handled this?
Gentle Reader: After you politely followed your hosts’ instructions, it is galling to learn that the invitation did not accurately express their intentions.
But broadcasting that your husband was not invited is neither polite nor will it assuage your own embarrassment. The criticism of your hosts in such a statement is explicit, the fact that no one else complied with similar invitations is implicit, and it makes clear that you are embarrassed — as well as the only one who misunderstood. It would be better to say how sorry your husband was not to have been able to come, and omit the reason why.
Dear Miss Manners: Upon returning home from a 20,000-mile business trip, I immediately lifted my yearling son and began enjoying the moment with him. My wife, who was on a video conference with her parents, interrupted to insist that I was being “extremely rude” not to greet her and them first.
Aside from Miss Manners’ insistence that it’s rude to point out others’ rudeness, would she grant a bit of indulgence for excited young children and fathers?
Gentle Reader: Human interaction takes precedence over electronic (although the retail and business world would have you think otherwise), so it was actually your wife’s second transgression not to have excused herself for a moment to greet you. How polite of you not to have pointed that out.
In the future, however, to make all parties happy, Miss Manners recommends that you say a quick hello to all electronic visitors as you run to hug your son — and then come back later to finish the conversation.
Dear Miss Manners: A few months back, I attended a family friend’s wedding. I gave cash as my gift. I received a phone call from the mother of the bride a few days later, and was informed that about 10 envelopes from the wedding went missing. Mine included.
It was heavily implied that I should re-give my original gift. I explained it was cash, and I was rudely cut off. Since then, the family has cut contact with me. Was I obligated to give my gift again?
Gentle Reader: No. But Miss Manners cannot help pointing out what a compelling argument this is against giving cash as a present. Or being friends with people who are so willing to extort it.
Dear Miss Manners: As a private duty nurse, I assist a disabled person with dressing, appointments and meals while his wife is at work (I prepare the meals for the patient and myself). When his wife arrives home from work, she insists on paying for my services just before I leave, and she often brings supper with her.
I feel as if I have invited myself to dinner and am invading family time. My commute to their home is over 30 minutes, so I cannot just pick up my check later. Will you suggest an appropriate way to excuse myself and receive payment?
Gentle Reader: It is difficult for Miss Manners to determine if you are truly worried about infringing on family time or would rather not conflate your professional duties with social ones. Both are valid, they just require different answers.
If the former, it is possible that the couple might actually enjoy your company and relish the break in their routine. You may accept their invitation without worry if you are so inclined.
But if you are asking how to politely make a quick, polite getaway while also getting paid in a timely manner, you may say, “I would love to join you, but I am afraid I have a prior commitment” — even if that commitment is to your television.
Dear Miss Manners: A friend and colleague is getting married, and I accepted her orally delivered invitation long before she gave me the printed one.
Opening the two-folded card, I found, framed in it, a smaller card with a bank account number printed in bold, and the suggestion that one might, if so inclined, contribute to the couple’s honeymoon. It was only by removing this first card from the frame that I got to the actual invitation (which declared its own relief at being found, opening with a “Finally!” — which was supposed to be a self-deprecating joke).
The bridegroom, however, probably knowing how I feel about begging for — well, anything really — started justifying their decision to include their bank account details, and made a point of explaining how impractical more traditional gifts would be for them.
Once I got home and was done with my head-shaking, I realized that the couple hadn’t even provided all the necessary details for the donation they are soliciting: a second, necessary, bank code was missing, as well as the name of their bank and the details of the account holder(s). I know both of their full names, but they aren’t provided, either.
I now see three possibilities of action for myself, all of which make me rather uncomfortable: 1. Ask them to provide the missing information so that I can comply with their request. 2. Reply in kind, accepting the invitation and enclosing an amount of money, while profusely apologizing for such a vulgar gesture and explaining I didn’t have all the data for a banking transaction and didn’t wish to bother them at a highly busy time. 3. Straight-out ignore the displeasure expressed by the groom at the prospect of actual gifts, and buy them one I suspect will not be appreciated. What do you recommend?
Gentle Reader: Would not this couple be afraid that someone might misuse their information? Perhaps that is why it was incomplete.
While it is commendable that you want to please this couple and facilitate their rude and greedy request, Miss Manners feels compelled to remind you that it is they who are committing the transgression, not you. Send them a present that you hope might please them — perhaps with an accompanying note that their banking information was confusing. This might result in them correcting it for you, but you may ignore that.
Dear Miss Manners: I threw a birthday party for myself. It was a big birthday for me, and I paid for everyone’s dinner (including wine). This was an expensive affair, and I went all out. Two couples (the wealthier ones, LOL) came without a gift (only a card). Was it presumptuous of me to find this rude?
Gentle Reader: Yes. While Miss Manners commends you for not forcing others to pay for your own lavish party, it is only recently — and under false notions of etiquette — that this has become unusual. It is, in fact, correct. Expecting a present for it in return, however, is not.
Miss Manners is written by Judith Martin, her son, Nicholas Ivor Martin, and her daughter, Jacobina Martin. You are invited to email your etiquette questions from www.missmanners.com, if you promise to use the black or blue-black ink you’ll save by writing those thank you, condolence and congratulations letters you owe.