DEAR MISS MANNERS: As with so many other people these days, I'm on quite a specific diet; in my case, a popular and well-known diet which has been mandated by my doctor. While there are no foods I'm forbidden to eat on this diet, I do have to be careful to stay within my daily nutritional allowances. I have a small booklet of nutritional values that helps me with this task.

As I spend more time on this diet, I'm becoming familiar with the values of most common foods, but I am occasionally confronted with something new and need to either reference my booklet or decline the offer (or possibly both, depending on what the booklet has to say on the matter). Is this checking something that can be done politely or should I simply decline treats of unknown nutritional value?

GENTLE READER: Were you planning on asking the hostess to hold off a minute while you looked it up in your book? And while the other guests chimed in: "What's the calorie count?" "Is it all natural ingredients?" "Any carbohydrates?" "What's the fiber content?"

Miss Manners admires your determination to stick to your diet, but you must show equal determination in sticking to your duty to your hostess not to disrupt the dinner. Even if this means that you miss out on something your diet would have allowed you to have had you only known.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I received a wedding invitation last week. I had not had time to reply to this invitation before I received a phone call from the mother of the groom asking me to please return the invitation, as the bride needed to resend the invitation to another person because she did not have enough invitations!

I have never heard of such a rude request regarding invitations. I returned the invitation post haste. Should I send my regrets (my husband I are not able to go to this wedding because of a conflict in plans), and am I obligated to send a gift to the bride and groom? Am I still to be counted as a guest, or has this status been removed because of the return of the invitation? Any advice would be appreciated.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners would not ever -- ever -- advise anyone to fail to answer a wedding invitation. (Indeed, she hardly needs to. It seems to be what people do anyway.) But this time she is tempted.

Your invitation was, after all, rescinded. The possibility that the hosts had ordered too few invitations -- or that they intended to keep passing around a sample they got free -- is not worth dignifying as an excuse. If they couldn't re-order, they could invite the rest of the list by personal letter.

What she would be tempted to do, if she were you, would be to write a letter expressing best wishes to the bridal couple and regret that you will miss their wedding. Should she manage to overcome that temptation (please bear with her, as she is getting morally dizzy), she would say to the lady in question, "I don't quite understand whether I am expected." But then she might overcome her better nature as well, and add, "So I went ahead and made other plans."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I feel somewhat awkward in questioning a member of the Etiquette Mavens' High Council, but, as I am confident that you, of all people, will be most understanding, I must inquire about your use of a period in the word "Ms."

I seem to recall that when the word was coined, it was touted as not being an abbreviation of anything, but a new word in itself, indicating a woman's freedom from marital identification -- neither Miss nor Mrs. Because the word was not an abbreviation, no period was required. The test would be to name the longer form of the word abbreviated by "Ms." I think you will find that there is none. I am less certain about a plural -- the Ms's? -- but I will leave that up to you!

GENTLE READER: There is a reason that people are wary of questioning a member of the Etiquette Mavens' High Council, charming as we are, and charmingly as you have done so. We have long memories.

Yours is not as long as you think. You were not around when "Ms." was coined, as we can date it back to the 17th century. The full word was "mistress," and it was respectable in those days. "Mrs." and "Ms." are both abbreviations of "mistress" and thus take periods; "Miss," another derivative of the word, squeaks by without one as a sort of nickname. Because of unfortunate subsequent connotations, we do not use "mistresses" for the plural, but rather "Mesdames" or "The Misses" with the surname.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I recently became legally joined to my same-sex partner of many years. After the service, I commenced referring to her as my wife. I occasionally receive comments on how it is inappropriate to refer to her as such. Is there another word I should be using that will act as a stand-in for the rather cumbersome "woman with whom I am legally united"?

GENTLE READER: Spouse. And please don't ask Miss Manners for the plural.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am nine years old and I have a friend that is very forward. My friend always asks to sleep over, go places with me and my family, have snacks or eat over without being offered first. When I tell her this is not the time to do this, she pushes me over and over to ask my mom anyway.

This gets on my nerves. We have a good friendship other than this problem. What would be the proper way to get this problem to stop without hurting her feelings?

GENTLE READER: Nine is not too young to learn to say "no," and as your mother is presumably even older, she can help you.

When someone refuses to take "no" for an answer, that does not oblige you to come up with an answer that she will like better. However many times your friend asks the same question, you should give the same answer: "No, I'm sorry, this is not a good time." And the answer to "Why not?" is also "Because this isn't a good time."

You are supposed to keep this up until the other person's nerves, or rather her nerve, goes. But if you feel yours fraying, Miss Manners suggests saying, "Let's go ask my mother" so that lady can take over delivering the same statement.

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The American public has grown too cynical to believe that a politician whose wife gazes at him with rapt adoration in public must be a nice fellow. They figure cannily that the wife has surely heard it all before, so she's faking to make him look good, and they are not to be fooled into thinking this means anything. Or she's just been programmed.

Of course, she can't look bored, either, thus proving once again that being a politician's wife is a no-win situation. (Politicians' husbands are not used in this way, because it would be assumed that they are the brains of the outfit and their wives have been programmed to be out front.)

What this sophisticated public now demands is that politicians make public declarations of love for their wives. Only then can they be deemed nice. And so they do.

"I'm lucky enough to be married to the most wonderful woman in the world!" the politician shouts to the crowd. Wild applause. Then comes a joke or two about how she's really the brains of the outfit. Wild applause. "We've been married for X years!" Wild applause. "Honey, I love you!" he shouts to her. They blow kisses at each other.

As soon as they can reunite, they hug and kiss to wild applause. And they cannot take a step together without locking hands like high-schoolers.

Surely Miss Manners cannot be the only person who finds this in dreadful taste. But maybe she is, judging from all that applause.

She understands that in a society where divorce is common, it is considered an achievement, if not a miracle of selflessness, to keep a marriage going. Also, much as we love gossip, it is a relief to have evidence that there is not yet another scandal brewing.

She approves of the overdue acknowledgement that spouses are often major behind-the-scenes factors in the success of a political career. Unless the marriage is a farce, there are bound to have been numerous professional contributions, as well as personal support.

So why does she object to public declarations of marital affection?

Because they are icky.

Exactly because we do believe in the bond of marriage, extolling one's spouse is nearly as gauche as bragging about oneself. The "nearly" is in there because one can modestly admit to being proud when others praise the spouse. To praise one's own spouse to others is a play for reflected glory: "Notice that this wonderful person chose me."

The "We can't keep our hands off each other" demonstration is another form of marital bragging: "You may have settled down, but we are spending decades in a honeymoon fever."

Some leeway is allowed to those actually in the first stages of romantic love, but even they are supposed to exercise some control. Expressing affection in front of others has the unflattering implication of "We wish you weren't here so we could really go at it."

Finally, it doesn't prove anything except an absence of manners. We all know that lack of character is not incompatible with being adored -- even by someone who does have character, more's the pity. And we have seen enough handholding couples split for good to suspect that at least some of them let go as soon as we stop watching and applauding.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Here is a conundrum faced frequently by would-be gentlemen who travel:

A woman in front of you in the boarding line is towing onto the plane a totally unreasonable amount of carry-on luggage. When she reaches her seat, she discovers, to nobody's surprise, that she can't even lift her suitcase off the floor. What course of action (or inaction) would you suggest for the gentlemen in such a situation?

GENTLE READER: It depends on whether the gentleman wishes to help the lady with her suitcase or to punish her for having brought it aboard. Miss Manners gathers you favor the latter, and is at least grateful that you wish to do it in a gentlemanly way.

In that case, you should spring up and say soothingly, "Here, let me help; that's much too heavy for you." As the lady smiles gratefully, you may add, "I'll get a flight attendant who can check it for you."

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