DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am being swamped with e-mail messages from acquaintances who want me to forward pictures, videos, poems and such to others. Often the senders demand "I want this back!" as proof that I have read the message. Many times these messages are in the form of a chain letter, promising me good luck if I forward them and bad luck if I do not.

I do not have time for this, and it is becoming very annoying. At first, I dutifully forwarded the messages, then sent a short e-mail note to the senders saying that I enjoyed hearing from them. This resulted in more and more of these chain-letter messages.

Lately, I simply delete them but continue on occasion to send them brief "thinking of you" e-mails with no reference to the lengthy chain letters, hoping that they will get the hint -- but every day I receive six or seven of these messages.

Is there anything else I can do to discourage them without being rude? I would like to maintain contact with them, but not like this.

GENTLE READER: Remember when we used to blame the Post Office for everything we hadn't done? Well now, fortunately, we have even more plausible explanations:

My server was down.

My computer crashed.

I accidentally deleted my mail.

I've switched servers.

My spam filter must have caught it.

The Truth Squad needn't come after Miss Manners claiming that she is encouraging lies. Rather, she suggests that you make one of these problems happen. Trashing your hard drive is perhaps too drastic, but you could reset your spam filter or set up a different mail box for the offenders.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm the only person I know who wears formal hats semi-regularly. I try to keep them unobtrusive, so as not to attract more attention than the mere presence of a hat usually does, but I recently broke my own rule and bought a hat out of sheer love at first sight: a big, fluffy thing the proprietress called "Nordic Princess" and that lives up to the name.

While I'll be content to enjoy merely owning such a hat, it would be nice to wear it if the occasion arose. But when I consider local winters (sometimes a bit icy, nothing more) and the general rarity of hats, I can't picture any occasion (short of a costume party or moving to Alaska) where my new hat would not be both improper and slightly ridiculous.

Am I being too cautious? Where would such a hat belong, besides my closet? How do I assess the suitability of a hat when I must consider that, no matter how formal the occasion, I may be the only person wearing one at all? (On that note, I've read that a lady does not wear a hat in the evening; is it improper for me to wear one to an afternoon wedding with a dinner reception?)

GENTLE READER: It never fails to amaze Miss Manners that at a time when ladies wear daytime clothes that routinely expose more than their ankles, hats are considered shocking. She suggests that you learn to enjoy that, as she does.

Not having had the pleasure of seeing the Nordic Princess, she cannot tell whether it is intended for what ought to be considered everyday wear, even though it isn't. If it is wildly outrageous, then it should be worn at festive daytime events (weddings, graduations, serious luncheons) if you remember to take it off when the sun goes down.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I had some of my friends from high school, three girls and a boy, come over to my house for the evening to hang out and have fun. Once the pizza arrived, I put it down on the table and went to take my pre-meal insulin.

My mom realized that there were not enough chairs at the table before I had a chance to get them, so she asked my male friend to help her get one from the closet.

He later said to me, via a text message, so as to not let my mother hear, "Your mom called me over to bring a chair. How impolite is that?"

Although I understand that he was the guest, he was the only male, other than my father, who was upstairs, and myself, who was busy taking insulin, that would be able to assist. Who is in the wrong in this situation?

GENTLE READER: The male guest, for criticizing your mother, and any of the female guests who observed the need for more chairs and did not jump up to help.

Miss Manners first thought that the complaint would be about your mother's singling out a male for the job, which would have been petty enough. But apparently your friend thinks that any guest should be excused from simple courtesy.

It is true that nowadays, it is appallingly commonplace for guests to be ordered to work, bringing food and cleaning up. But for an older hostess to request trivial assistance, in the absence of the host, from a high school student should have been considering flattering.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the etiquette of yawning?

GENTLE READER: It is very simple: Don't.

That is not helpful, is it? Only people on airplanes with clogged ears and desperate hosts yawn on purpose.

Other involuntary actions, which Miss Manners does not care to name, are considered merely gross on the part of the, ah, performer. But yawning is considered an insulting sign of boredom. Therefore one should not only cover it with the palm, but attempt to turn it into a cough or a grotesque smile. Others are supposed to pretend not to notice, but if the yawner is caught, the polite thing to say is, "I'm afraid I was up late last night. Please do go on with what you were saying. I find it fascinating."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Unfortunately, I am currently unattached and would not want to attend a wedding with a lady I was not serious with. It's just too romantic an occasion. Is it OK to attend a wedding without a date?

GENTLE READER: Are you suggesting enjoying the wedding for its own sake and then mixing with the other guests?

Radical as that may seem, it is the correct attitude to take -- and one, Miss Manners notes, which was often its own reward. Before everyone complained about never being able to meet anyone eligible, weddings were considered a major venue for doing so. And being free to become acquainted with a bridesmaid or the bridegroom's cousin has more romantic potential than sitting next to a casual date who is bound to be thinking whether or not she would like to be standing at an altar with you.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: A calling card fell out of my copy of a 1905 edition of Edith Wharton's "The House of Mirth" when I cut one of the many uncut pages (the better to read). The card measures roughly 2 by 3 inches and has the name "Miss Wallace" in the center, "125 East Twenty-Fourth Street" on the bottom right corner, and "Fridays" on the bottom left corner.

I was able to determine that the address on the card is now St. Francis Residence, a shelter for the homeless mentally ill described as a "reconverted 100-room SRO hotel." The current structure was built around 1910. It might have been an apartment building or an office building in 1910. In 1905, it is possible that the address belonged to a private residence.

Does the word Fridays indicate that Miss Wallace was prepared to accept visitors on that day? Or does it indicate that Miss Wallace was a professional of some kind whose services were available on Fridays? I have not been able to find any information on the early 20th-century conventions for listing days at home on calling cards, but I am confident that you are well versed in such matters.

GENTLE READER: Indeed.

What fun you have had with this. Miss Manners hopes that Miss Wallace's great-grand-niece will come forth and tell family stories about the Friday that Mrs. Wharton dropped by and the hostess praised her book, not realizing that the author noticed the uncut pages. Or at least about the Friday that Miss Wallace's friends cautioned her not to read it because it was dreadfully harsh on polite society.

Had Miss Wallace been offering commercial services (and Miss Manners would certainly not speculate what those might be), reading "The House of Mirth" would have been humiliating. Its heroine, failing to make an advantageous match, is pathetically reduced to becoming an enabler to social climbers and then (although Miss Manners considers this more respectable) a milliner, failing at both.

However, this is unquestionably a social card, indicating that although Miss Wallace may not have made an advantageous marriage, she was not out trimming hats, but at leisure to receive any of her friends who cared to stop by on Fridays.

Her card is exactly correct. Its omissions enable Miss Manners to make a few modest contributions to your detective work:

Miss Wallace does not include her given name because she is the eldest or only daughter of her family; any younger sisters would have had to state theirs. Her address is given without city or state because she does not expect train-setters (as opposed to jetsetters) from such social outposts as Boston to show up without elaborate introductions. Those who are expected know the rules and will not surprise her while her hair is still in curl papers, so she does not need to put "Fridays after four," as some did.

Miss Manners can even guess at the conversation. No such gathering at the time would have been complete without deploring the tendency of people -- not only the newly rich, but "people one actually knew," as they would have said -- to abandon their townhouses and move uptown, some of them even choosing to live in -- gasp! -- apartments. Mrs. Wharton, if she were there, would then have made her departure. For uptown, and then back to France.

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