DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife is a very sweet and most charming social worker who works at an in-patient ward in a psychological treatment facility. She's stunningly gorgeous and has a beautiful figure.

Since there are certain male patients who are bigger and stronger than many of the female employees, and they tend to grow unstable at times, she teaches these gals wrestling holds and other techniques for self-defense. She wears a pink leotard in her classes. Since she wiggles quite visibly, a lot of her male co-workers whistle flirtatiously and woo loudly at her.

Sometimes she just laughs along with them, but too often it annoys her. She's told me a lot of times when it has occurred that she would have liked to have told them to cut it out, but since she was rather busy teaching, she didn't want to interrupt her program. What do you recommend she could do to iron it out?

GENTLE READER: Do you realize that you have phrased this question rather salaciously?

In objecting to this sort of harassment, people generally stress the dignity and professional demeanor of the person being targeted. Your question is all about wiggles and gorgeousness and that pink leotard.

Miss Manners points this out only because if you and your wife are having a good time with this situation, she does not want to spoil it. If your wife is annoyed, she should make a serious request to her employers for privacy in which to teach the women's classes and the protection from harassment from her co-workers that they are legally obligated to provide.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Several years ago, I was asked by my professional colleagues to give a speech at our annual convention. To my great surprise, at the end of my talk the assembly rose and stood for a prolonged ovation. I had no idea whether I should remain at the podium, take my seat, wave, bow or perhaps mumble "Thank you, thank you" into the microphone.

While I have no reason to believe that I will ever again be invited to speak at another convention (having presumably used up my allotted time already), and only dreaming that any remarks I would make would be so well received again, I am nonetheless still wondering, if the speaker's remarks are honored with a standing ovation, what ought one do?

GENTLE READER: You are so charmingly modest about what must have been a splendid speech that Miss Manners feels certain that you will have this problem again. When you do, she has every confidence that you will do the correct thing.

That is because the correct thing is to appear surprised, grateful and modest, and you actually were. Murmuring your thanks at the podium for a moment, bowing slightly and then retreating to your seat is exactly the way to express this.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our daughter, who goes to school and works part time, is getting married for the third time when the groom graduates from college. Both times before, she had the kind of wedding she wanted -- a justice of the peace the first time, and a big wedding, including bridesmaids, flower girl, ring bearer and live music at the reception, the second time.

To what extent are we obligated to do a third wedding? They plan on inviting 200 people!

GENTLE READER: Presuming that your daughter is anywhere near the age of her undergraduate fiance, she seems to be having weddings more as a hobby than as a commitment. Miss Manners can hardly blame you for tiring of it.

This is the time to remind your daughter gently that wedding festivities are not something that parents owe their daughters, merely something they usually feel moved to do when their little girl leaves home. Her leaving one husband's home for another seldom inspires the same feelings.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Would you please explain to your readers, in your well-reasoned and irrefutable way, why people should not inflict surprise parties on their friends?

I just discovered, accidentally, that a surprise bridal shower was in the works for a date and time that would have been disastrous for me. If I hadn't discovered this and persuaded the host to reschedule, one of two things would have happened: either I would have reacted very ungraciously, thereby alienating my friends and relations; or I would have grinned and borne it but resented them forever for throwing off my plans for the day (which couldn't have been reconstructed at any other time).

Why can't people manage a simple "I'd like to organize a shower for you, would the 20th at 11 a.m. work, or is something else preferable?" Such an approach would elicit the feeling of happiness that someone going to the effort of planning a party on another's behalf surely hopes for, and it would ensure that when the event arrived, the guest of honor was prepared -- physically, mentally and cosmetically to enjoy his or her own party.

Please say Miss Manners agrees with me; it's all I've ever hoped for in life.

GENTLE READER: After that declaration, Miss Manners would probably agree to anything. But she agrees that you have deftly pointed out the problem with surprise parties: They take the guest of honor by surprise.

Her idea of a successful surprise party is one at which the guests, having had their fun popping out and shouting "Surprise!" spend the rest of the evening asking the perfectly groomed and relaxed guest of honor, "You mean you really had no inkling?"

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I realize this letter will not be read by the people who should read it, but right now I am so disappointed, disgusted and mad that I have to vent to someone. I have just come home from my grandson's fifth birthday party, to which he invited 15 of his classmates, and only one parent called in regrets. Well, five classmates attended!

My daughter put R.S.V.P. Regrets Only on the invitations. Do parents nowadays not know what that means, or are they just rude and inconsiderate?

My daughter planned for 14 cupcakes, punch, goodie bags (which aren't cheap to put together). What should people do to plan for a party -- call each person and ask if they're coming so they won't be out extra money?

GENTLE READER: It's not the extra money. Miss Manners doesn't care how much those goodie bags cost, you didn't get disappointed, disgusted and mad over the financial loss.

What is bothering you, and rightly so, is your grandson's heartbreak about having been stood up. And that, yes, there are a great many rude people who don't answer invitations.

Still, your daughter could have done more to protect your grandson, including, unfortunately, calling around to find out who was attending.

She should not have trusted in "regrets only," a peculiar construction generally associated with parties so large that the hosts feel they require only a rough count. For that matter, she would have done better to put "please respond," rather than R.S.V.P., which is not only unnecessary with "regrets only," but a term unlikely to be known to 5-year-olds in case they read -- or were read -- the invitation.

Any normally intelligent 5-year-old would understand "Please respond" to mean that a response was required. Why their parents do not is another question.

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