DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have several standard flatware settings (place knife, fork, spoon and salad fork) in a pattern I like. Lately, I've been thinking I might acquire dinner knives and forks in the same pattern. Frankly, I regret not buying the larger pieces in lieu of the others to begin with.

How do I now "justify" the place pieces? As luncheon knives and forks? I'm not so much concerned with what is correct (though correctness is nice) as with the logic of it all. Those place pieces are bugging me! I'm filling out my service (cream soup spoons, shrimp forks, tea and coffee things, etc., etc.) with vintage pieces, if that makes a difference.

GENTLE READER: Would you mind terribly if Miss Manners justifies this in terms of correctness? First, she can't help herself, and second, the police have enough trouble with the incorrect use of knives as it is.

Before the late-Victorian explosion of specialized silverware, a proper place setting consisted of two sets of forks and knives, one big and one smaller. You heard right -- there were no salad forks, fish knives or other such items that could be used as social weapons against those who didn't know which was which. The smaller set was used for breakfast and luncheon, and at dinner, the fish course was eaten with two small forks and the meat course with the large knife and fork.

Miss Manners realizes that this defeats your plan to indulge in other specialized flatware, an amusement she happens to share. So she will relieve you by suggesting how you could use them as well as both sets of forks and knives together:

Serve an entree, in the proper sense that this meant before restaurants started misusing it to identify the main course. This would be something such as sweetbreads or potted pigeon served after the soup and before the main course. Your guests may look a bit peaked, but your table will look stunning.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Would you please write about what constitutes a proper engagement? A young person recently told me that an engagement should be a year at least. She was referring to a couple we both know who are in their thirties!

In my youth, I seem to recall that an engagement of that length or longer might be proper if the couple was extremely young, still in school, completing military service, or not financially independent. This couple meets none of these and is even living together already. What am I missing? Has the nature of engagement changed?

GENTLE READER: Of course it has. As in the case you cite, affianced couples are apt to be sharing living quarters already. Engagements used to be shorter because the pair felt it was more urgent to be alone together than to take time to plan an extravaganza for others to see. But if they were really short, people would assume that the couple "had to get married," an expression Miss Manners doubts anyone even understands these days.

A proper engagement is one that lasts from the mutual decision to marry until the marriage occurs. How many hours or years that may be is something she is happy to leave up to the couples in question.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a math Ph.D. and a female one at that. In my youth I was blissfully spared most of the tasteless cracks about women not being able to do math, or mathematicians not being able to be women that were current in pre-women's lib days.

Now, however, I am facing the obverse of those remarks. I am back in school in an unrelated field. Occasionally the professor will write a simple algebraic equation on the board. The students know high school algebra well, or they wouldn't be at this university. Nevertheless, without fail, a hand goes in the air and the plaintive oh so "feminine" voice wails, "Can't you just put in the numbers?" or "We won't have to do this on the test, will we?"

I know that these plaintive little mieus are followed up with earnest visits to the professor, bad marks on the professor's teaching evaluations, or sometimes even trips en masse to the dean. One of my friends took a real statistics course for which she had not had the prerequisites and found the statistics professor expecting them to know the theory behind the statistical methods they were learning. She flounced off to the dean, all teary eyed, to complain.

The net effect of all these "feminine" wiles is to dumb down my education and my kids' education!

What can I do to respond to this thoughtlessness? Writing a letter to the dean defending the stats prof was a good idea which I followed. Turning around and issuing a sarcastic remark to the offending student would be bad.

Seeing them after class and ruthlessly attacking their laziness and cowardice is also not a good idea. Offering to review high school algebra with them would be good, even if it would be a drag on my time. Praising the teacher for doing things in a way which is far more useful than doing an insipid little song and dance routine with numbers instead of equations might be good. What are your thoughts on the matter?

GENTLE READER: That you suffered more than you think from the bad old days. You acquired the belief that females are always judged as a group, and that therefore the poor performance of some is a reflection on you.

There is no need for you to do anything at all about other students' shortcomings. That is the professor's job. If you wish to tutor them out of the kindness of your heart, Miss Manners certainly does not want to discourage you. But your urge to attack them does not sound as if you are interested in their education.

Your education is only affected if there are so many students whining and asking silly questions that the class is not worth your taking. Since you praise the professor, this does not seem to be the case. And anyway, good luck in finding a course where there are no whiners or poor students.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am expecting what will be the sixth, and probably last, grandchild in my family; the first five are all boys. My mother has commented frequently, although not insisted, that it is inconsiderate not to find out the sex of the baby before it is born. Is it?

GENTLE READER: Inconsiderate to whom? If you promise to use a kind and humorous tone, Miss Manners will allow you to say, "I wouldn't dream of violating my child's privacy. (Pause) Yet."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: In restaurants, when we order iced tea or water, the beverage glass often comes with a lemon slice stuck on the top of the glass. I always remove the lemon slice and put it in my drink. My husband often leaves the lemon slice on top of the glass while he drinks from the glass. I think this is gauche. What is your opinion?

GENTLE READER: That your husband often has a wet nose. But also that it is probably fragrant.

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