DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I were at dinner at a nice restaurant, where they serve a loaf of bread and leave it to the patrons to cut it with a large steak knife.

Halfway through the meal, after the main course had been served, my husband was unfortunate enough to cut his thumb while cutting himself a slice of bread. I gave him a Band-Aid from my purse, and he left the table to apply it in the men's room.

He was gone for a few minutes, during which I desired a slice of bread. The knife was still in the loaf, and his slice was half cut. I finished cutting his slice, set it on his plate, then cut myself a slice. I would like to note that there was no blood on the knife or the bread.

Even though my husband had no qualms about my actions, I could not help feeling that I had committed a breach of etiquette by cutting myself a slice of bread while he was away. Was this all right to do?

GENTLE READER: Was what all right to do? Chomp away while your husband may have been bleeding to death in the men's room? Risking repeating the accident and leaving no one to care for your doubly orphaned children? Serving your husband a slice of bread with which he has unpleasant associations? Cutting yourself a slice of bread when there was no gentleman around to do it for you?

You will be relieved to hear that you have escaped error. So, barely, has Miss Manners, because she is far too polite to inquire why you are fussing over a solitary action that offended no one.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I would like to host a small party in my home for members of my project team, my boss and our former boss. However, I read that if you are single, it is improper to entertain your boss in your home.

Is this correct even if others (six other people plus spouses or significant others, if any) are present? I don't know if this will be helpful, but I am female and single, my boss is male and married, and our former boss is female and married. Both their spouses would be invited.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners is afraid that we live in a suspicious world, and there are indeed those who might think that a single lady who entertains her married boss at home alone means business, as it were. How this could be construed so as to bar her from inviting a boss and his wife to a party, Miss Manners is not suspicious enough to imagine.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I always feel that I overreact to rude remarks: getting embarrassed, playing it over in my mind, feeling ashamed and never knowing what to say. Here are some I have heard since I have been ill that hurt my feelings:

When I came home from chemo, the at-home nurse made the remark that, at first, she thought I was my husband's mother! I have received similar remarks about being my son's grandmother ever since I have been ill. I also have a friend who makes remarks that embarrass me about my medication, illness, weight, etc. I usually act like nothing bothers me and just laugh it off, while it's killing me inside. Help?

GENTLE READER: Unless you enjoyed thoughtless, unnecessary and discouraging remarks when you were well, Miss Manners wouldn't worry that the problem is overreaction. The problem is that you are in the company of people who make thoughtless, unnecessary and discouraging remarks.

Laughing it off just encourages them. What you can say in a civil way is, "I hope that wasn't intended to cheer me up, because it's backfiring."

:

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I've noticed that on otherwise well-respected current events programs, guests are regularly addressed by their proper title (Mr. So-and-So, Ambassador Such-and-Such), but the guest, probably by prior instruction, addresses the journalists by their first names.

In the unlikely event that I am interviewed on one of these programs, I would like to treat the news people with the same courtesy they do me, but I also would not want to appear stuffy by objecting to their common practice. Any advice?

GENTLE READER: Yes: Think about why you want to be on such a program, other than to excite your parents.

Miss Manners does not want to disparage your fantasy -- or fear, as the case may be. She only wants to alert you that there is more going on here than the simple system of recognizing rank. Journalists have incentives for using titles: to remind the audience of the importance of their guests, and to avoid the appearance of favoritism, if their questions seem soft, or of disrespect, if their questions seem harsh.

They may well have it both ways if a distinguished person implies familiarity by addressing them by their first names. But politicians have their own reasons for wanting to appear folksy, foreign dignitaries often have the impression that surnames are not properly used in America and entertainment celebrities like to imply that the famous all know one another.

If your appearance is connected with one of those careers, you may want to follow its practice. The correct thing, however, is to maintain equality in the degree of formality used. But, then, Miss Manners is never afraid of appearing stuffy.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: As a high school senior, I am in the process of preparing my graduation plans for June. We had a presentation in school the other day about graduation announcements. I understand that other than announcing your graduation to friends and family, the announcements are a way to get monetary gifts.

Coming from a background that is not familiar with this American tradition, how am I supposed to send the message across that these gifts would be appreciated? I don't think my oblivious relatives will see the pre-stamped, addressed envelope as a hint, however obvious it may be.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners would not exactly call begging -- whether of the kind you describe or the frank kind practiced on the streets -- an American custom. It is true that both forms of behavior exist here, and may even be widespread, but they are not the expression of our charming culture, but the unpleasant results of misfortune or greed.

The proper use for graduation announcements is to announce your graduation to those who you have reason to think will be interested. What they will be moved to do about this is up to them and out of your control.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What do you do with a used tea bag when a guest at another person's home or in a restaurant? I have always found it rather tacky to put it on the same saucer that I am placing my cup on. I have always placed a clean saucer next to the individual for any used tea bags. What should one do?

GENTLE READER: "What shall I do with the tea bag?" is an excellent question to ask your hostess. After all, it is her tablecloth.

:

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."

: