If we promise to make a better world, as graduation speakers urge us to do, it seems to Miss Manners that we should be able to urge them to make graduation a better day.

It doesn't take much to make everyone happy on such an occasion. Graduates, parents and faculty are already giddy with relief about what has finally come to an end: their education, tuition payments and the academic year, respectively.

Presuming that they are not being rained upon or baked, they can summon unusual patience for remarks that would make them roll their eyes any other time. It is not often that one gets the young to sit still to be told that they should realize how fortunate they are, that they should stick to their ideals, that they can make a difference, that they will never stop learning and so on. And before lunch, at that.

Those are not the speeches Miss Manners would seek to modify. All that needs to be said.

As on other ceremonial occasions, it is those who subvert the conventions who are the most tedious, as anyone can attest who has suffered through weddings or funerals that strive to be original. The form for graduation is to say something uplifting about education and wisdom and the work of the world that needs to be done, but there are people for whom this does not offer enough scope.

Here is a field report from a Gentle Reader who attended three graduations last year, one good and two bad, and implores Miss Manners to help get things under control:

"The speakers at my son's high school graduation were both nervous, but the speeches were excellent. They spoke, in very different styles, of challenges past and future facing the graduates, the local community and the country, and of the importance of participating in these communities and of honoring those individuals and institutions that made us who we are."

But at a college graduation, the speaker "used the occasion to attack, under the guise of humor, political opinions and groups to which he was opposed, other schools in the state, other states and an entire region of the United States.

"Even that address could not compare in vulgarity with the one perpetrated at the prestigious (and expensive) law school to which my niece has paid a small fortune in tuition, most of it from her parents. The student body president spoke at some length about herself -- her struggles to overcome difficult personal situations in attending law school, her joy at realizing her ambitions, her fears in the past and for the future, and her gratefulness to those who had helped her. A brief acknowledgment was given to the existence of other students, whose loved ones, the speaker pointed out, had undoubtedly helped them, too."

The Gentle Reader suggests faculty vetting, as was done for the high school speakers, and a reminder that a graduating senior chosen as speaker is supposed to represent the class as a whole.

Miss Manners would expand that to remind all graduation speakers that they are supposed to focus on education. Alerting people that they believe themselves to be the center of the universe only illustrates the failure of education.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a Christian and find it offensive when people with whom I'm conversing or interacting (usually in a business setting) use "Jesus Christ" as an exclamation or, worse, an expletive.

I am at a loss to know how to deal with it. I remember your comment about extreme civility being used as a reproach.

What do you advise I say to them that is forceful but polite or, better yet, a reprimand cloaked in manners? I am mannerly by upbringing.

GENTLE READER: Then you know about the ban against correcting others people's manners. In this case, the phrase "holier than thou" would spring to mind.

For a polite rejoinder, Miss Manners suggests that of a theologian and scholar who, when greeted with that exclamation by firefighters who found him standing on his head and calmly ignoring an alarm replied, "No. Merely one of his humble disciples."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Are there etiquette guidelines regarding when to remove sunglasses? What if the sunglasses are prescription rather than plain glass or plastic?

I remove mine when I go into buildings (if for no other reason than for safety), but last summer on the golf course, my husband and I were introduced to the other players who would make up our foursome for the 18 holes. None of us removed our sunglasses for the introduction and afterward I realized a part of meeting and greeting someone is eye contact.

Should sunglasses be removed, and under what circumstances?

GENTLE READER: Oh, no, you don't. Miss Manners is forever being besieged by demands that widespread customs be abolished because everyone cannot comply with them. A prime example is that handshaking be entirely abolished because there are people with medical or religious reasons for not doing it.

But this would effectively abolish the entire language of cultural customs, as there are always going to be exceptions. Instead, etiquette merely asks those who cannot comply to make clear that it is not a matter of hostile intentions (by offering the left hand, if possible, or saying with a friendly smile, "Sorry I can't shake hands") and others to accept this unquestioningly.

However, Miss Manners is not about to declare a ruling in a matter as physical as wearing glasses. Not only would removing prescription glasses deprive many people of knowing whom they were meeting, but even nonprescription glasses might cover a multitude of conditions -- blindness, light sensitivity, watery eyes, black eyes and goodness knows what else.

In addition, there are many shades of shades, from the tinted kind that show the eyes, to the dark, wraparound kind that give the wearer the appearance of having been blindfolded for execution.

All this leads Miss Manners to highly uncharacteristic hedging and pleading: Remove your sunglasses when meeting and talking to people if they prevent eye-contact, but only if you can do so without hardship.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We just recently found out from a co-worker (married for over a year) that she and her husband have not sent thank-you cards for the gifts they received at their wedding. Although the cards were purchased, they have not made the time to write them and send them out.

Our co-worker feels that she doesn't need to send them and that they are too "old fashioned." The wedding guests should know that she likes their gifts and is thankful for them taking their time and money to purchase them.

She stated that due to working restraints, she was unable to find the time to write these notes. Mind you, there were only 35 to 40 cards to write. We feel this is absolutely appalling, that in this day and age people aren't thoughtful enough. Young people also don't have the same values as the generations preceding theirs.

Our co-worker is doing a great job with her working ability, but this finding makes it hard to look at her in the same ways we did before. We don't want to hold this against her, but it is hard not to do so when we all feel that thank-you notes are still in style.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners hates to quibble with people on her side, but what do you mean by "in style"? Your colleague maintains that gratitude is a fad that has passed; surely you are not simply arguing that no, it hasn't quite passed yet?

But you are quite right to regard your colleague in a harsher light. Not having time for those who have been of use to her, or expecting people to know what she feels without being told, are not just socially undesirable notions but ones that could easily spill over into her attitudes toward work.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I understand that it is considered rude to place a full plate of food before a guest, and that food should always be served to guests at the table, or in their full view. I am curious as to the reasoning behind this practice. Does it come from a medieval fear of someone poisoning the food?

GENTLE READER: Do you mean on the part of hosts who are saving on poison by not presenting the targeted guest with a platter from which he could select his own? Whereas polite murderers offered platters from which their guests could, as we say, choose their own poison?

Miss Manners knows how delicious those stories are, adding a sort of computer-game version of medieval machinations to mundane customs. She is sorry to report that such explanations nearly always arise retroactively with little or no support from stodgy old history.

Slapping down individual plates that have been filled in the kitchen, thus depriving the eater of choices about particular foods and portions, is a 20th-century convenience developed by restaurants. Before then, and in proper service now, guests help themselves from platters they pass to one another, or are served at the table by servants or their hosts.

The traditional guard against poison, among those important enough to fear it, was to insist that someone else -- preferably the putative poisoner, but usually and less conveniently all around, a servant -- taste the dish first. Thus that annoying person who keeps sticking a fork into your plate is the safest choice of dinner companion.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We are a home-schooling family. My eldest daughter will be finishing her high school curriculum in June, and I would like to mark this event in a way that honors her accomplishments and expresses our gratitude to all those who have played a role in her education.

I am considering a reception tea on a Sunday afternoon, but am not certain if there should be some small ceremony in conjunction. We certainly do not have a diploma to give, but perhaps her father could speak a few words about her, or she could offer a brief talk of thanks.

Is there a precedent, outside of public school graduations, that we could follow to commemorate the completion of a secondary education before embarking on college?

GENTLE READER: Please convey Miss Manners' congratulations to your daughter for getting herself a new assignment: designing a home ritual for one.

And here is your teaching guide:

In private hospitality, as opposed to public ceremonies, the first consideration must be the guests. Formal graduations are given by schools, not individuals, and the willingness to sit still to hear about other people's children's achievements depends on immediate reciprocity.

The way around this is to spread the honors. If your daughter knows other home-schoolers, they could devise a small joint ceremony for their families. Otherwise, an acknowledgement of her achievements -- by having her parent-educators say just a few words, perhaps in a toast -- should be embedded in a social form directed at others. At the party you suggest, her job of briefly thanking guests for their support should be the main feature. Another possibility would be for her to give a graduation party for her school-attending friends, at which there is a reference to this also being her graduation ceremony, with an extremely short and preferably lighthearted version of a ceremony.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: One evening out with my wife and four young children at a family restaurant, the children were less than well-behaved. As we were preparing to leave, my wife went to the childless couple at the table next to ours and said, "I want to apologize for my children's behavior." The man's reply (without the courtesy of even looking at her) was, "You ought to."

How does one politely react to this?

GENTLE READER: By saying graciously, "And I'm sure your mother, if she were here, would do the same for you."

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