DEAR MISS MANNERS: I just read about the tradition of requiring morning attire (until now translated as tails, pearl or black vest and striped pants) of all Justice Department employees appearing before the Supreme Court at oral argument.

Given all the precedent-setting possibilities implicit in this scenario, what would you recommend the new female Solicitor General do? Law is one of the few areas of life left that people take tradition and symbols seriously, and I thought you might be able to add an interesting -- and much needed -- perspective grounded in a real appreciation of etiquette.

GENTLE READER: Actually, nearly every profession or activity takes seriously its own traditions and symbolic clothing, whether formal or informal. It is not just the law, but also the military, the worlds of sports and of music, brides, street gangs and, oh yes, etiquette. Ordinary people do, too, which is why rock stars look like members of a church choir when they have to face a jury.

But the question of the Solicitor General is a hard one for Miss Manners. Not only is she generally fond of tradition, but she hardly gets to see anyone in proper morning clothes, now that presidents have decided that their inaugurations are not all that formal (or are afraid that top hats make them look like cartoon plutocrats). Japanese statesman and the occasional daytime bridegroom are about it.

In the Court, that formality symbolizes the stature of the executive branch's representative, respect for the highest members of the judicial branch and the importance of the occasion. Well and good.

However, these clothes, equally suitable for major daytime ceremonies and social life, are for gentlemen. The ladies' equivalent, of softly flowing dresses with hats, is strictly social. That makes them ridiculously out of place in a professional context. Not to mention that the variety expected in feminine clothes would be prohibitively expensive.

One solution has been simply to put the male clothes on females. Waitresses in fancy restaurants wear male evening clothes. Miss Manners finds the symbolism offensive, as it symbolically concedes that she is an ersatz male doing a male's job. But neither does Miss Manners approve the female slackness she sees in orchestras, where male musicians wear proper evening clothes and many female musicians slop around in anything black.

So unless some great designer can come up with a standard, professional-looking formal dress -- the formal equivalent of the everyday feminine daytime pants suits taken up by many stateswomen -- morning attire will have to disappear. It is a shame, but Miss Manners is afraid that the negative symbolism outweighs the positive.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a professor at a large public university and recently asked the gentleman friend I have been dating for over a year if he would accompany me to a university social function.

He agreed, but three days before this event he told me he could not attend because he had just been invited to the 50th birthday party of a longtime friend and there was a time conflict.

What do I do? Stay home or attend the university event on my own and make his excuses?

GENTLE READER: Of course you should go. Miss Manners hopes you, at least, know how rude it is to throw over an engagement. Unless, of course, it is an engagement to be married.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am the mother of an 8-year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome. He's extremely intelligent and highly emotional.

Second grade presented him with significantly greater expectations in the classroom, which he greeted with significantly more disruptive behavior. His father and I and the school intervened quickly and were, we believed, working collaboratively to help him learn appropriate behavior within the constraints of the public school system.

I'll spare you the details; what matters is that each day was pretty unpredictable and stressful for him, his teacher and his classmates. His teacher was an experienced professional (20-plus years in the school) who had taught our older child two years before. Apparently, she reached her tipping point, because out of the blue one day, the principal informed us that she was changing our son's classroom placement in order to give him "a new beginning." He managed the transition pretty well, though he was very sad about leaving behind the friends he had made in his original class.

I simply cannot find it within me to greet her civilly when I see her in the hallways. I cannot even bring myself to make eye contact with her. My son has moved on, emotionally, but what he doesn't know is that she just gave up on him; she decided she couldn't tolerate the disruptions he caused in her classroom and asked for him to be transferred. (I know this from a conversation with his present teacher.)

Even realizing that such a teacher makes a bad match for my special-needs child has not helped me to forgive her. I know also that I am modeling a bad example for my son, which adds to my distress (except that he is oblivious to nonverbal social cues, so unless I were to instruct him not to speak to her, which I'd never do, I can nearly rationalize my own bad behavior). My son is not a monster; he has a medical disability, and it kills me that her decision signals to every other teacher in the school that she views him as ungovernable.

I assume my anger will dissipate with time, but in the meanwhile, I want to behave better. Can you make some suggestions for the next time I encounter her at school?

GENTLE READER: Look her in the eye. Greet her civilly. And if it doesn't choke you, tell her that you appreciate her having tried to deal with what you acknowledge is a difficult situation.

Since you are appealing to Miss Manners, she assumes that you know she will not justify behaving, as you admit, badly. But it may help you to know that behaving graciously is the best thing you can do for your son.

It isn't only the example, although you should not count on his total oblivion to your distress. He has evidently not been branded as ungovernable, because another class was found for him. You do not want to saddle him with the burden of being part of a package deal with an ungovernable mother.

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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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