"What are we supposed to talk about -- the weather?"

Miss Manners hears this question often, delivered in a tone that is not at all nice. It is intended as an indictment of etiquette as being either so draconian as to repress all but the blandest conversation, or so wimpy as to be unable to tolerate discussion on any but the least controversial subjects.

She is thinking of barring these people from discussing the weather. With that contentious attitude, they are bound to make themselves socially impossible, hectoring everyone about the environment and pointing out that their listeners are stupid and immoral for, depending on their point of view, ruining it or ruinously protecting it.

But does not Miss Manners' reaction prove the accusations against etiquette? After all, she is questioning free speech in a free society, where airing conflicting opinions is not just a constitutional right, but the means by which we decide how to run the country! And not just shying away from talk about sex, religion and politics, but now -- the weather!

Hold on. This is Miss Manners pontificating, not the United States Supreme Court. She couldn't abridge free speech if she wanted to, and she doesn't want to. Nor does she want to restrict the exchange of ideas and opinions. On the contrary.

Far from squelching substantive discussion and debate, etiquette is what makes them possible. Admittedly, it does tell people when to keep their mouths shut and what they should not say. Is that what people mean by repressive?

Without such rules, there are no exchanges of ideas, only exchanges of set positions and insults. People who disagree rapidly move from talking over one another to shouting one another down, and from expressing their opinions on the matter at hand to expressing their opinions on the intelligence and morality of those who disagree with them.

It is only by adhering to strict etiquette that any controversy can truly be aired, whether it is at a legislature governed by Robert's Rules of Order, a courtroom governed by the judge's sense of decorum or a dinner party governed by social etiquette. The rules vary, but the idea is always to protect the assemblage's ability to accomplish its purpose.

It is true that at a dinner party, the purpose (aside from food, drink and those forlorn hopes of meeting someone new and interesting) is conversation. So why shouldn't people talk freely about things they feel strongly about?

Because Miss Manners doesn't trust them. She has seen them when they really get going on something they care deeply about. People who pooh-pooh the rule against discussing sex, religion and politics at the dinner table, under the impression that these areas are so overexposed that they have lost their former ability to inflame the passions, should recall the last time they heard people disagree about war, abortion, the death penalty, gay marriage and other such tepid topics.

Was there a true exchange of opinions? That needn't mean that someone ended up changing positions, only that they listened respectfully to someone else's point of view and debated the argument and not the goodwill of the person making it.

Occasionally, she concedes, people with manners have been known to participate in stimulating dinner conversation about hot topics -- but only if they have the self-control to wait until getting into the car before saying, "I had no idea those people were such morons."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm a college student about to embark into the business world and I was wondering if you could please clear up the appropriate attire for cocktail parties before I make a faux pas.

I thought a cocktail dress fell above the knee, but my roommate insists it can be any length, as long as it is sans sequins or other decoration. Could you please advise?

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners doesn't suppose she could advise you to embark upon a career in which the first thing you need to know is something other than how to dress for drinks.

All right, then. In any decent line of work, people wear their business clothes to office parties, ladies adding whatever festive touches they can add in the ladies' room. You might want to be less decent when you go out socially, when cocktail dresses can be any length except floor length.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My 17-year-old cousin is going to have her first child in two weeks. She is not married. Her immediate family consider themselves religious and, frankly, better than anyone else, so needless to say, this was quite an unpleasant surprise for them and for my grandmother.

The issue is that they haven't told anyone about the child and don't plan on telling our extended family, whom we are quite close to.

My immediate family thinks this is quite appalling. We consider the fact that they are keeping the pregnancy "hidden" out of shame to be shameful in itself, and think that our relatives will be more insulted when they are (if they are) introduced to a 6-month-old baby than if they were told of the expected child beforehand. We have been told that it is "not our place" to tell anyone, but we feel it is just plain rude to keep this hidden.

What is proper and less insulting? To announce the coming birth of a child, or to surprise them more with "Oh, you have a great nephew who turned 6-months-old today, didn't you know?"

GENTLE READER: The branches of your family may differ about religion, but they share an oddly unrealistic notion of censorship. To begin with, why do the prospective mother's wishes not seem to figure into the dispute? Unless she plans to hide the fact of the child's existence, through allowing him to be adopted or by rearing him where she is not known, she is the one who ought to be telling her other relatives.

It may not be your place to make the announcement, but Miss Manners hardly thinks it anyone else's place to clap an order of silence on you. You are honor-bound only to inform the silent grandparents that you cannot promise you will never mention your new cousin.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter was home educated and finished her classes last November. She was married in December. I did not send out a graduation announcement because I did not feel it was proper etiquette to send two invitations at once. I thought people might think we were being greedy.

Now that it is graduation time, I want to send a graduation announcement for her. I know that all graduates like receiving money for gifts, and so does my daughter. Besides, it would really be a blessing for her and her new husband.

How do I go about this properly? We are not going to have a graduation ceremony because it is too hard to accommodate my daughter's busy schedule. What I want to do is send a simple announcement that she did in fact complete her education and if anyone should want to send her a graduation gift that would be wonderful. Should I put her married name, though? At the time of completing her schooling she was not married. Should she be the one to announce her graduation, or should I still do this?

GENTLE READER: Greedy? Because it occurred to you that it might be profitable to announce an event from last year, surely long-since known to anyone who might care, even if your daughter is too busy to socialize with them? Who, besides Miss Manners, would be crass enough to think that?

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband's 87-year-old father, a patient in a nursing home under hospice care, has some dementia, but is lucid quite a bit of the time. We walked in on a conversation at the foot of his bed between my husband's younger sister, her husband and one of the staff nurses, who were discussing specific "timeframes" in full voice as to his life expectancy.

We were shocked! I gently tapped the nurse on the shoulder, as her back was toward me, and whispered, "Don't you think this should be discussed somewhere else?"

At that point, the brother-in-law said, again in full voice, "Oh, he knows."

Of course he "knows." Hospice has a compassionate and realistic approach when it comes to keeping patients apprised.

But we felt that this was an egregiously vulgar conversation to conduct within earshot of the patient.

My husband and I both began our college years in pre-med and later switched majors. In those days, we were always taught as a matter of dignity and respect to the patient to watch our conversations in the patient's presence. This universal dictum even applied to patients who were in a deep coma and hadn't responded to crude stimuli for years.

On a more mundane level, we feel this is a vulgar violation of everyday manners. This event has caused quite a rift in the family.

GENTLE READER: There is nothing petty about the etiquette involved -- and grossly violated -- in this situation. It addresses the fundamental principle upon which the entire noble field of manners is based: respect for human beings simply because they are human beings.

Yet, paradoxically, it suspends the usual advantage that manners have over morals, namely that if you don't get caught, it doesn't count.

The violation is flaunting the belief that the person is incapable of understanding how rudely he is being treated. Never mind whether your father-in-law was aware of this conversation or of his situation. What your relatives did was the equivalent of thumbing their noses at a blind person.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was invited to the homecoming dance by a friend of a friend who bought me a very lovely corsage for my wrist. While we were dancing another girl walked up to me and asked me if we were allowed to take the corsages off because they were falling off while we danced.

I told her I did not know. She took her corsage off but I left mine on. Is it proper to leave the corsage on all the time even if it's falling? Or is it all right to take it off? This has bothered me for a long time and I want to know what is right for the next time I receive another corsage.

GENTLE READER: Propriety is not so interested in the state of the flowers as in that of the gentleman who gave them to you. Miss Manners assures you that it would be better to let them wilt, rather than his feelings.

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