DEAR MISS MANNERS: At lunch in an elegant restaurant with my mother, who is almost 70, and friends of hers that I don't know well, one of the friends related some sad and traumatic events from her past.

My mother interrupted to say that one of her daughters had been born brain-damaged, but had managed to live an almost normal life, thanks to Mother teaching the deficient little thing to read and interact socially with regular people. This effort occurred over many years and with countless sacrifices on my mother's part.

I almost jumped up and screamed, "Have you gone senile, lady?"

I would like to think that manners restrained me, but it was probably only the fear of looking like a deranged lunatic shrieking at a feeble old woman.

Miss Manners, the entire story was a complete crock. My sister is not brain-damaged and, although she is not as financially successful as me and my other sister, she holds down a demanding job in health care and, with her husband of 20 years, has raised two lovely children. I am the oldest sibling and would remember any long tutoring sessions, if any had occurred.

Mother has been known to enhance the truth for dramatic effect, although never so publicly (as far as I know) and with such a detailed, well-thought-out story, complete with painful pauses and pitiful glances.

The next day I told Mother that if she started to say bad things about any member of the family, I would leave the room or hang up the phone. This reproof was somewhat diluted by my bursting into tears.

So what should I have done, Miss Manners? I'm not repeating any of this to my two sisters, and I'm not too worried about what they'll think of Mother's version of events. After all, they grew up with her, too.

Still, I feel bad about not defending my sister at the lunch table and am a little worried about Mother's effect on her depressed friend. What are the proper manners in a situation like this?

P.S. No one was drinking.

P.P.S. Come to think of it, I had ample warning. Mother prefaced her touching little fable with "I really shouldn't say this..." which was my opportunity to reply, "Then don't."

GENTLE READER: As you must have included yourself in the first postscript, Miss Manners congratulates you for not letting this drive you to drink.

As you know, the proper thing is to exhibit family loyalty. All you had to do was to protect your sister without attacking your mother.

While loyalty to your sister demands squelching the misconception your mother saw fit to launch, loyalty to your mother demands protecting her against embarrassing herself. This would be even more necessary if she were losing her faculties than if she simply enjoys spreading false rumors.

The way to do both is to admonish your mother affectionately, saying, "Oh, Mother, you are so wicked, you're going to have her believing you." Then turn to her guest and say, "This is an old family joke, because my sister was such a precocious child."

Should your mother be reckless enough to insist that it is true, you can humbly reply, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to spoil your fun."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How do you deal with people who invite themselves?

GENTLE READER: By apologizing profusely for being unable to let them in.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a divorced, non-custodial father of a 6-year-old boy. My ex-wife (who is my son's mother) and I get along very well, and often the three of us will attend community events together.

Frequently, we will engage in conversation with another couple who has children around our son's age. At some point in the conversation, we will be asked how long we have been married and other questions that couples have a tendency to ask one another.

Usually we respond that we are divorced but are still good friends, and then try to steer the conversation away from us and toward the children. This does not always seem to be enough to prevent the other couple from feeling uncomfortable.

Do you have any suggestions about how we could respond to these types of questions in a way that does not create an awkward moment for the couple we are talking with?

GENTLE READER: No doubt these people would feel relieved to see you at each other's throats, the way they expect normal, divorced couples to behave, but Miss Manners sees no reason to oblige.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I knew I was about to lose my job, I mentioned my availability to a few people in case they knew of anyone hiring software engineers. It turned out that one of them was the sister-in-law of the high-profile CEO of a large software company. She asked me to bring my resume the next time we met.

I had expected that she would pass the resume on to her brother-in-law, but when I gave it to her, she looked confused and told me to mail it to him at work, as she wouldn't be seeing him. I asked if she knew of an e-mail address I could send it to, and she said she only had his personal address and didn't feel comfortable giving it out.

She's a motherly kind of woman who is new to the Internet, and probably believes that you need to send a paper resume to be taken seriously, which isn't the case in the software industry.

I appreciate the referral, but you can't just mail a resume to the CEO of a large company without any sort of introduction. I did send it, in case he was waiting for it, but he never replied. I doubt that it even made it past his mail screener, who wouldn't have recognized this woman's name when I mentioned her in the cover letter.

How could I have turned the situation around? Should I have asked her to e-mail it for me? Or asked if she'd let him know to expect my letter? How could I have let her know that the referral was useless without an introduction, without sounding ungracious?

GENTLE READER: The lady already knew it was useless, Miss Manners is sorry to have to tell you. Between the time she made her impulsive offer and the next time she saw you, she found out that her brother-in-law was not interested in the referral -- or perhaps she simply reflected that he would not be.

This need not be a reflection on you. If you were a CEO, it is possible that you would approve a personnel policy that failed to give preference to your motherly sister-in-law's acquaintances.

Networking has its limits. It is all very well to make it known that you are job hunting, but you cannot dictate the type of help to be given.

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Years ago, we saw it coming.

Hyphenated surnames, which Americans once associated with the sort of comedy in which "Oh, I say!" passes for dialogue, suddenly became common. In the last two or three decades, the double-barreled name, signifier of class-conscious pride, went democratic.

Miss Manners always recognized a strong case for husbands and wives hyphenating their surnames, and for giving children the surnames of both mother and father even if the wife had retained hers alone. Perhaps because she finds it easy to live with anachronisms, or perhaps because she finds it hard to memorize names, she did not advocate abolishing the old naming system and universally adopting the new. Instead, uncharacteristically and at the expense of standardization that makes life blessedly simple, she approved of such hyphenation as freedom of choice.

And thus -- equally uncharacteristically -- ignored the problems it would create for generations yet unborn.

At first, the problem was the discomfort, not to say hostility, that a change to so symbolic a matter always creates. Miss Manners would have thought that this reaction had passed by now, but here are excerpts from a fresh sample:

"What is happening to our world! ... For the life of me I cannot see why these young women are so adamant against using their married name. If you don't want to use your husband's name, why get married? What are they worried about? What do they feel they are giving up when doing that? ... And what of the men? Why do they go along with this crazy arrangement? And what happens when the children arrive? What do they think when they find out their mothers have different names from their fathers?"

Miss Manners has difficulty believing that the use of separate or hyphenated surnames reveals that brides are hostile to their bridegrooms, or that husbands should control their wives. Considering the number of children whose parents never marry or do not stay married, she would not count the mere discovery that parents have different names as much of a trauma.

The most often cited reason for double names is the unfairness of representing the paternal line, and not the maternal, but there are other, practical considerations.

Despite centuries of tradition, it is no less peculiar to shed a surname in adulthood and assume another. Later marriage means that ladies who have built professional reputations on one name have to begin again with another. Increasing divorce leaves identity connections that no longer reflect family connections, and makes a potentially embarrassing lack of distinction between current and past wives. Increasing remarriage leaves veteran brides with dizzying changes, creating confusion among their acquaintances and havoc in the various bureaucracies responsible for keeping track of them.

Now, however, the inevitable problem has arrived. Here it is, from a Gentle Reader who is both hyphenated and pregnant:

"My spouse and I both have compound names; mine is Ms. R.K. Morgan-Foxworth, Ph.D., and his is Dr. Scott Ralston-Jennings III. I had considered adding his surnames on to mine, but it would have read 'R.K. Morgan-Foxworth-Ralston-Jennings.' Try saying that four times fast.

"When our housekeeper answers our phone, the extended greeting makes people think they've reached a law firm.

"What is my child going to do in first grade when challenged with writing her obscenely long name? It seems cruel, but I don't want to insult either set of grandparents, who hold their hyphenated surnames so dear and are expecting to pass on their legacy to their grandchild.

"This modern age of hyphenated and compound names is truly a cruel burden that our parents couldn't have possibly foreseen and now leaves us in such a quandary that any suggestions, no matter how blunt, would be greatly received."

Here is the blunt answer: Start lopping off names. That is what law firms have to do. And don't tell Miss Manners that this is cruel to your parents because they could not possibly have foreseen the problem. They did, as Miss Manners did, and we all cruelly left you to deal with it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am not a know-it-all and don't monopolize conversations, but I do contribute some factual knowledge in areas that interest me. Numerous times, I've heard, "How come you know so much?"

It has crossed my mind to say, "Was I supposed to get permission?" or "One who doesn't spend one's time riding one's bike in circles tends to pick up a few things." But I'm confident that Miss Manners can suggest a reply that, while not accommodating an apparently peeved attitude, might facilitate social peace.

GENTLE READER: Try "I like to listen to people who know more than I do." Miss Manners suggests following this with a pleasant smile and then a long pause.

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