DEAR MISS MANNERS: We run a Cotillion Club for teens in our city. The boys are required to wear jackets and ties, but we were wondering if it is proper etiquette and acceptable to remove their jacket once the dancing has begun.

We've noticed many boys leaving the dance and their jackets are completely sweated through. Our Board Members are divided on this issue and we really need your expert advice.

GENTLE READER: Turn down the heat.

If you lower the temperature, it is easy to raise it again. If you lower standards, it is not. Miss Manners suggests you consult any business that has tried to do away with Casual Friday or even to limit it to Fridays.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am frequently walking down an aisle in a crowded restaurant or on a deck of a cruise ship, when a waiter is approaching carrying a heavy tray of drinks or dishes.

Should I step aside and let them go by, as they are carrying such a heavy load, or should I continue on and have them step aside? Although I am the guest, their task would appear to be much easier if I let them pass.

GENTLE READER: It would be easier on your clothes, too, Miss Manners would think, if you did not insist that because you are a paying client, you can claim the right to push past an overburdened waiter on a heaving ship.

While it is true that well-trained service people defer to customers, properly trained human beings do not insist on their privileges when these would cause trouble for others.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I attended a party on Christmas at my sister-in-law's house. To my horror, I saw all of the glass, plastic and aluminum going into the regular trash.

I couldn't figure out a polite way, that didn't seem accusatory, of asking them if I could recycle these items. So I secretly snuck all those items into a bag, which I took home to my curbside recycling container.

It would have been counter to my principles to ignore the waste that was going on. But it also seemed rude as a guest at the party to ask about the nonrecycling. Is there a polite way to broach the subject? Simply ignoring it would not be an option for me.

GENTLE READER: Did other guests see you secretly foraging in your sister-inlaw's trash?

Miss Manners trusts that you were not observed slipping out of the house with a large stuffed trash bag, because strangers would not have mistaken you for Santa Claus.

Last question: Can you not think of a better way to serve your ideals than by performing stealth maneuvers with other people's property? Miss Manners can. You could have simply offered to take the trash on your way out, without burdening your hostess with the reason at the time. But as she is your sister-in-law, you could choose another time to present your argument politely and perhaps to ask her if she would like you to give her recycling bins.

But you would have to accept her response, either way. Your beliefs do not cancel her sovereignty in her own household.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband is in the academic field. We have a friend/colleague (Mr. Smith), an acknowledged leader in his field who stays with us when in town on the lecture circuit.

My problem is another colleague of my husband's (Joe) who literally worships the ground Mr. Smith walks on. I have no problem with this. Mr. Smith deserves all accolades. I do have a problem with Joe showing up at our house uninvited, staying from breakfast to dinner throughout Mr. Smith's visit.

We never see Joe any other time and this is a good thing. Joe has repeatedly tried to cast aspersions on my husband's work and character over the past 30 years. We don't like Joe.

He totally ignores us the whole time he's at the house except when I offer food or drink. I've invited him to all faculty get-togethers; he never comes. I've tried pointedly to invite him to dinner or lunch or breakfast while Mr. Smith is here, and that doesn't work. I've tried looking surprised and confused when he appears at the door and saying, "I don't remember inviting you for breakfast," but he just says, "Oh, Mr. Smith and I are old friends, I don't need an invitation."

I don't know how to state the obvious without sounding rude. What can be done?

GENTLE READER: What would be rude to say to the stalker would be somewhat amusing and flattering if said to the stalkee.

"I'm afraid that you have a very persistent fan club in our friend Joe," you might say to Mr. Smith. "We thoroughly share his admiration for you, but he does get a bit underfoot, and he doesn't understand about waiting to be invited. I'm wondering if you could drop him a hint about having the fan club meet elsewhere."

While your words have been ineffective, those of the hero himself are bound to be respected. Miss Manners would not be surprised if this brought forth a confession from Mr. Smith that he, too, is tired of his worshiper and was tolerating his constant presence out of politeness to you.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My dad passed away a little over a year ago. Is it appropriate to still wish my mom a happy anniversary on their wedding anniversary date? I avoided it last year because I didn't know what to do.

It's coming up again soon and I am at a loss again. It would have been their 48th anniversary. I don't want to pretend like it didn't happen or that it isn't special anymore because he is gone. What should I do?

GENTLE READER: You seem to think that the words "happy anniversary" are the only ones you can use. And you are right that they do not suit the situation. Still, it is a date that your widowed mother will remember, so you must think of words that do.

At best, this will be a bittersweet occasion for her, and Miss Manners can assure you that the lady would be gratified to know that you shared her feelings -- as long as you don't urge her to be happy about marking it without her husband.

What she will want to hear is that you remember the date, that you are thinking of her, that you miss your father, and that you have happy memories of the two of them.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I realize that I am a dinosaur, but I am very confused by these new references to dress. We were invited to a dinner dance beginning at 6:30 p.m. The invitation said "cocktail attire." My husband was dismayed to be the only man in attendance in a tuxedo.

Back in the day, that would certainly have been the proper attire for the event, but clearly we were mistaken. In fact, there were many men there in casual sport coats. The ladies were in everything from suits to elegant long dresses.

I think I have figured out "business attire" but am uncertain about "business casual," and obviously ignorant of "cocktail attire."

We are invited to a 6 p.m. wedding in a church (formal, black-ink invitation), and my husband says he is taking no chances and wearing a dark suit rather than his tuxedo. What is the proper dress, and how does one go about finding out what is customary? I thought I knew!

GENTLE READER: Back in the day when there was a sensible understanding of clothing is so long ago that this entire party seems to have been in a state of confusion. Miss Manners hopes that is of some consolation to your husband.

What the poor hosts meant was that you should dress up, but not to the extent of wearing what is now considered full evening dress.

Oh, dear. Nobody is clear about that term, either.

Let us go back a bit more than you probably intended, about a hundred years. In what was then called society, another term that has become meaningless (and was rather silly even then), people wore evening clothes in the evening. It didn't take a lot of agonizing to figure that one out -- evening, evening clothes; daytime, day clothes -- so no instructions were necessary.

But problems were arising. Evening clothes had meant white tie and tails for gentlemen, and long dresses with low necklines for ladies. But even before the turn of the century, the so-called tuxedo (a word still spurned by the fastidious, who say "dinner jacket") was invented as a tail-less alternative, and more and more young bucks were adopting it. So hosts had to specify white tie, black tie or informal, which meant dark suits for the gentlemen.

Soon to come were the Little Black Dress and -- the cocktail party! Traditionalists were reeling.

But by the mid-20th century, things had more or less settled down. Tails and dinner jackets, known as white tie and black tie respectively, became different degrees of evening formality, so invitations specified which one.

Ladies wore long dresses with either, but because neither they nor the gentlemen should wear evening dress before night, they needed dressy short dresses for that wild new form of entertaining that began in late afternoon, the cocktail party. Nowadays, cocktail parties are not the dashing events they once were, and what people actually wear is their office clothes during the week and sports clothes on the weekend.

Oops, there's another misleading term. "Sports clothes" in this sense are not what one wears to play sports, but tailored trousers and open shirts or sweaters -- or what may be meant by "business casual."

As to that 6 p.m. wedding, your husband is right about wearing a dark suit. If it doesn't say black tie, it isn't.

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