DEAR MISS MANNERS: I saw a toddler sitting in a shopping cart at the supermarket as his father shopped for produce, and the toddler had a plastic produce bag over his head and seemed to be enjoying himself. Presumably the father gave the bag the toddler to entertain himself as the father shopped.

Fearful that he would suffocate, I gestured to the toddler to pull the bag off of his head. Keeping the bag on his head, the toddler just smiled at me.

Was there a diplomatic way to ask the father to remove the bag from his toddler's head? Was I wrong not to say anything to the father? I feared being a meddler, but am haunted by the horrific vision of a lifeless young body. Plastic bags are potential deathtraps, not playthings.

GENTLE READER: Wait a minute: Is this baby alive? Knowing what you do, you walked away from a baby who was putting a plastic bag over his head?

Miss Manners is haunted -- not only by the danger involved, but by the outrageous assumption that etiquette condones human sacrifice.

True, there are rules against criticizing parents and assuming unauthorized authority over other people's children. However, this does not sound like a difference regarding child-rearing methods. Unless you believe the father was committing infanticide in the hopes of enjoying eating that produce all by himself, you have to assume that he was ignorant or unaware of a clear and present danger.

Miss Manners hastens to inform you that etiquette is not the foolishly inflexible system you seem to believe. It also has a rule against shouting at people, but if you were drowning, it would not take you to task for raising your voice to say "Help!"

Something more was called for here than using pantomime to administer a safety course to a baby. You could have spared both the baby and the father's feelings by saying apologetically -- after snatching away the bag -- "Forgive me, but I'm afraid those bags can be lethal."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My father recently passed away, and our family has received many cards of condolence. Is it proper for me to send thank you cards to those who mailed us condolence cards? Do I acknowledge condolence cards with thank you cards of my own when, for example, the original card was sent to me from a neighbor just next door?

GENTLE READER: The definition of "card" here troubles Miss Manners. Are you talking about an impersonal exchange of printed matter -- one card announcing "deepest sympathy" and the other "thank you"? Or an exchange of important sentiments that only happens to be written on smaller paper than is formally required on such occasions?

All letters of condolence, with their kind words about the deceased and sympathetic ones for the bereaved, require written expression of gratitude. If you simply want to thank someone for a minimal, rote acknowledgment, you can do so just as unceremoniously, for example, by saying, "Thanks for the card" when you next see the neighbor.

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How do you let guests know that you don't expect them to get dressed up, exactly, but sort of? How do you indicate that they don't need to eat before the party because you're not quite serving a full dinner, but sort of?

What is the polite word to describe people who are sort of young, but not really? Or those who are sort of old, but not really?

What do you call people who are sort of dating, but not exactly dating, or sort of married, but not actually married, or not really the parent of a particular child, but sort of acting in that capacity?

Miss Manners thinks it sort of unreasonable of a society with that much trouble making up its mind to demand precise terms to describe such in-between states. Life was easier when the choice was between formal and informal, dinner and cocktails, youth and old age, courtship and friendship, marriage and great-and-good-friendship, and parents and houseguests.

Having more choices was supposed to make it more exciting, but what time does anyone have for excitement when so much is spent just figuring out what is meant?

"Formal" and "informal" meant something, although the meaning slid from "white tie" and "black tie," respectively, to "black tie" and "business dress." Nobody has a clue to what is meant by the current slew of oxymorons -- "elegant casual," "creative black tie" -- including the people who keep making them up.

Age designations have become so befuddled by bogus claims -- such as 10-year-olds claiming to be old enough to commit adult sins and 70-year-olds claiming to be middle-aged -- that age has become voluntary. Perhaps we should tell the You're Only as Old as You Feel crowd that they can't collect Social Security until they feel old enough, and the young at heart need not apply.

Some parental terms have gotten baldly explicit -- biological parent, sperm donor, surrogate mother -- while others have been loosely and pathetically conferred on those just passing through the household.

As far as Miss Manners is concerned, courting couples can call themselves anything they like as long as it is decent. However, by the time they buy a house together and register their children at school, society needs a term for them. One had not existed previously, because people in that situation denied it.

For many weary years, she conducted an earnest search.

She had rules, and she had the help of legions of imaginative Gentle Readers, most of whom ignored her rules. The term should not be cutely or baldly descriptive of the emotions presumably involved in the situation, she declared; it should be easy to spell and pronounce, and it should not create confusion by pre-empting a term in use for non-romantic relationships.

Society now seems to have settled on "companion" and "partner." These violate Miss Manners' third rule, instituted to protect the reputations of those who may innocently use these terms to refer to their pets or their business associates.

But if it means she never again has to hear the terms Significant Other and POSSLQ, she will consider herself lucky.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: If you are answering the telephone in the home of Patty and Pete Magpie, is it true that it is NOT correct to say "Mr. Magpie's residence"?

And it IS correct to say "Mrs. Magpie's residence? I read this idea in a book written in 1960.

GENTLE READER: That is because it was the assumption in 1960, that Mr. Magpie was off at work, and Mrs. Magpie was in charge of the household.

Nowadays, we assume that Mrs. Magpie is off at work and still charged with running the household. Therefore, the form "Mrs. Magpie's residence" is still current among traditionalists, unless Mr. Magpie will make such a fuss as to not make it worth Mrs. Magpie's while. ("Mr. Magpie" was never correct, and now it would be foolhardy as well.)

Judging from the choices of more advanced folk, they would prefer you to say, "You've reached Patty and Pete. They can't take your call right now, but if you leave a message they'll get back to you just as soon as they can. Have a good one."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work in a small, independently owned coffeehouse. Frequently, customers will order from me in the distinctive, quasi-Italian jargon of a certain large chain. There is some overlap in lingo, but not content, between my menu and the chain's.

How can I ascertain what my customers would like to drink without sounding insulting, or as irritated as I feel?

GENTLE READER: Why are you irritable? These customers are at your coffeehouse, placing orders. Can't you interpret this as their being in search of something better than what the chain offers, or at least on the brink of finding out that there is something better?

Miss Manners doesn't write advertising copy, but she would consider that a tactful approach to take. "No, no, that's a standard brand," you can say. "We have the equivalent, but it's the real thing. Let me know if you like it."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I recently signed up to take some dance lessons together (swing and two-step). When the class started, we were very surprised that the teacher expected us to take turns dancing with everyone in the room.

Her reason was that in social dancing situations, it is expected that you trade partners frequently. Obviously, if we had known this, we would not have signed up, but, fortunately, we were able to gracefully excuse ourselves at an appropriate moment and cancel the remaining lessons. After checking with several more studios, I found this practice to be the norm.

I realize that traditionally it was expected for ladies to dance with whoever asked them, but I thought that went out along with hoop skirts (or at least poodle skirts!). I certainly never thought that ever applied to married couples. Perhaps we don't move in the highest of social circles, but anywhere I have ever seen social dancing (weddings, formal office parties, charity balls, etc.), I have never seen this practice, outside of the occasional teen-ager who happens to have attended. In this day and age, I would never let a stranger touch and hold me while dancing, and even if it was a close friend, I wouldn't for the sake of appearances.

Am I correct in feeling that this tradition no longer takes place, or are my friends and I simply gauche? We are taking private lessons from now on.

GENTLE READER: Gauche? Only if you embarrass respectable gentlemen by treating conventional social invitations to dance as if they were erotic overtures.

Prudish is the word that Miss Manners would use. She does not normally consider this the insult that everyone else does (priding herself on a bit of prudishness of her own), but you have far outdone her. Dancing at parties and celebrations (as opposed to public nightclubs) is a perfectly standard form of socializing that Miss Manners is astonished to hear your friends consider tantamount to marital infidelity.

At those weddings you attend, do you never see the bride dancing with anyone but her husband? Her father, her father-in-law, her husband's best man, the groomsmen? And do you all stand around and twitter about that brazen hussy allowing others to hold her?

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