DEAR MISS MANNERS: I often attend live performances at the end of which the performers will acknowledge people in the audience. When someone on the stage announces an audience member by name, there is usually polite applause.

What is the proper response for the audience member whose name is announced? Should he or she stand? Remain seated? Thank the performer with a nod of the head or wave of the hand? Acknowledge the other folks in the audience? Is it considered rude to NOT stand?

I have seen a great deal of reactions ranging from jumping out of chairs to arm-waving and blowing of air-kisses to embarrassed smiles and nods to seat mates. How SHOULD one react politely in that situation?

GENTLE READER: In reverse of the usual consequences of uncertain behavior, the people who look embarrassed and uncertain about what to do are the ones who are the most charming. Miss Manners hates to spoil anyone's natural tendency in that direction by announcing that it is the proper thing to do.

Jumping up and waving at the audience shows far too much enthusiasm for credit. Even on-stage performers are supposed to bow humbly to receive their applause. A member of the audience should turn and half-rise with a shy smile, waving only if there is a sustained and tumultuous ovation that requires that signal before it will abate.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am employed by a small firm that provides professional services. Consistent with the norm for my profession, a portion of my compensation arrives in the form of occasional bonuses, the existence, timing, and amount of which rest in the sole discretion of the firm's partners.

All of my colleagues at the firm understand that their base salaries are comparatively low to reflect the fact that they will participate, through bonuses, in the expected financial success of the firm.

I have just been chided by one of the firm's partners for my lapse in failing to thank him for a mid-year bonus. I certainly felt silent gratitude, but had been taught that an employee should not insult the dignity of service by thanking his employer for each compensation of office. To my understanding, this includes bonuses, which are fundamentally compensation, albeit contingent and arbitrary. Of course, one still must thank one's employer for courtesies beyond compensation, such as granting a vacation request for a particular date, or permitting one to leave early for errands.

I offered this rationale to my miffed employer. He warned me that I had relied upon "bad advice" in this regard, and if such a rule ever existed it is antiquated and no longer has any basis.

Have I erred? I cannot bear to think so.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners cannot bear the notion that the grace notes of politeness should be ripped from the ordinary transactions of life that can be reasonably expected. By that reasoning, no one should ever praise you for a job well done, because that is what you are being paid to do.

Absolutely, you should thank them when they grant the requests you list. What does it cost you?

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Can you please explain the rules regarding the holding open of elevator doors while would-be passengers hurl themselves across the lobby, shouting, "Hold the elevator"?

I am talking specifically of a 6-story building with a bank of 3 elevators, so it's not as if another one wouldn't soon be available to any people who miss the elevator in which I'm trying to ride. Why, indeed, would these people then feel that their time is more valuable than mine, and that I should wait with the "doors open" button pressed, for them to arrive into the elevator car?

Typically, I press down on the Door Close button and pretend to be oblivious to their requests. This usually works, and I can ride the elevator in peace, but a co-worker of mine considers this frightfully rude.

GENTLE READER: It is. Whatever the reality of the situation, people think of elevators as they do romances. They can tell themselves that it is not a tragedy to miss one, because another will be there soon, but when they have begged and yet been deserted, that sequel seems sadly problematical.

If you must continue to slam the doors in your neighbors' or colleagues' faces, Miss Manners requests you to shoot a frantically helpless look at whoever is left behind, telegraphing that you are not swift enough to locate the Door Open button in time.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Must tradition dictate what is good manners and what is not? Tradition dictates that British barristers wear white wigs. And that is fine and is good manners for them. (But, as I recall, there is a movement afoot to change that.)

It seems to me that there are times when that which tradition calls good manners and what is common sense do not go together and is wasteful.

For example:

"No menu, no carry-out." That's what my wife and son say about my asking for a container to take home good food I can't consume at our "formal" dinners. By formal I mean suit and neckties for the men, and maybe long gowns for the ladies.

These dinners are in large hotel ballrooms, and we have as many as 500 attending. When we pay $45 per ticket and a serving of delicious steak covers half a plate, it really pains me to think of sending half or more of it back into the trash. (Unserved food in the kitchen is donated to good causes, but not food from used plates.)

So why is it wrong to ask for a carry-out box and have two or more good meals later at home? All such institutions have stacks of these containers as a matter of daily business. OK, I could take a sealable plastic bag the size of my side pocket and unobtrusively take care of it myself. How about that?

GENTLE READER: You made a tactical error here in discounting tradition, Miss Manners is afraid. Ancient tradition would have been on your side. At Roman banquets, guests were given the extra food to take home.

That is fine for them, as you graciously concede about those wigs, although it would be unnerving to encounter a bewigged official in an American courtroom. Context counts.

It is also fine for you to request the leftovers when you are buying yourself dinner out. It is when you are out socially that you are supposed to pretend that the food is so much less important than present company that you don't dwell on its future.

Besides, your wife does not want to dance with someone who has a soggy pocket.

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Before water got so full of itself, it was a great little social mixer. With a history dating from ancient times when villagers would mingle by the well, it delighted in providing simple ways to foster sociability.

Hobos (as the geographically mobile homeless were called) could open a request for assistance from housewives (as geographically stranded working women were called) with a modest and undeniable plea for a glass of water.

Office workers could refresh themselves with gossip, complaints and jokes around the water cooler.

Children could stave off bedtime by the transparent but effective demand for a glass of water.

Things have changed, Miss Manners has observed. The need for water is recognized as being more important than ever, but the sociability that went along with it has vanished.

Fearfulness about crime has barred doors to strangers. Of old, the homeowners were aware that granting a request for water would lead to other demands, but they may not have had so vivid an idea as what those might be.

The water-cooler has lost its appeal now that people can gossip more comfortably by e-mail and take their breaks by playing computer games, both activities being less visible to supervisors than grouping together.

And any self-respecting child, indeed any self-respecting citizen, now carries around his own water bottle.

The effects are not all as beneficial as water would like to pretend. And it has become nothing if not pretentious.

Adopting the snobbishness of wine and the importance of medicine, all water thinks of itself as holy water. As it splashes around, it is creating etiquette problems.

"On two occasions, while attending church service, I saw people taking a couple of sips from their sport bottles," reports one Gentle Reader. "Is this acceptable?"

"As with many people," announces another, "I frequently carry my own store-bought water (both abroad and in the States). At a restaurant where we were having lunch, I refilled my water glass from my own water bottle. My brother found this to be extremely rude, while I found it a very practical solution to being thirsty. I should add that the water provided by the restaurant was at a fee. Was this indeed rude and cheap of me?"

Yet another Gentle Reader complains, "An uncomfortable situation arises if I am in the car, where I keep a bottle of water (I am in the habit of carrying drinking water with me wherever I go) or on an outing with small children whose parents invariably haven't bothered to think about drinking water. When they see me drinking, they begin complaining that they're thirsty.

"I seem to get sick often enough as it is, without 'help' from other people, and am fastidious about others not drinking from my bottle. On the other hand, I feel badly about being the cause of an unhappy child. Occasionally, the parents are miffed at my refusal when they ask if their little ones can share my water. Is there a tactful way out of this situation?"

The way out of all these problems is the realization that none of this involves administering water on an emergency basis to the critically parched. You may drink more water than you used to because it is good for you, and you may find it convenient to have your favorite brand on hand, but this does not wash out the basic restrictions on eating and drinking:

You do not take refreshment during church services or on other solemn or formal occasions.

When you go to a restaurant, you buy its wares, rather than bringing your own (unless there is a policy allowing that, inevitably accompanied by a corking fee).

When you are out with other people, you do not take refreshment unless you have some to offer them, too.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What would you do if you received minimal "RSVP's" to an upcoming party you were hosting? It seems pretty rude to not even respond to an invite, but do you track everyone down?

GENTLE READER: Unfortunately, you have to, unless you want a lot of leftovers or a lot of hungry guests. If it were Miss Manners, she would hang onto the list of people who needed prodding. It will serve as an invaluable reminder, for the next party, of whom not to invite.

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