DEAR MISS MANNERS: At a dining-with-clients etiquette lunch, the presenter said either spoon or fork works for dessert. My mother, who thought of herself as a bit of a Miss Manners, used to tell me, "If served in a bowl you use a spoon, if on a plate you use a fork." So if you get ice cream on a plate, you eat it with a fork.

GENTLE READER: You will be relieved to hear that there is such a thing as an ice cream fork. It has a spoon-like bowl that ends in short, wide tines, useful for breaking off chunks. This configuration, in various sizes, is sometimes characterized as a spork, or, for fans of Edward Lear, a runcible spoon.

You should be even more relieved to hear that etiquette is not a system for disrupting meals to humiliate the hungry. It requires providing the necessary tools for eating whatever is served, placed in the order in which the courses will be eaten.

Thus, a spoon would be provided with a squishy dessert (Miss Manners' favorite kind), and a fork with a drier dessert, such as cake. And, yes, the gooey sort would likely occupy a bowl and the others a plate. That is the basis for your mother's instruction.

As for eating ice cream from a plate with only an ordinary fork, a nearly impossible task, your mother must have been cautioning you to make do without embarrassing the idiotic host who served it that way.

But even chocolate and vanilla desserts are not all black and white. That is why the proper dessert service consists of both a fork and a spoon in all but cases where only one or the other would be of use.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We moved to a different area of the country to be near our daughter, who has some health issues, and to help with our granddaughters. We have made new friends in this smaller community, and our next-door neighbors have helped us immensely and have become very good friends.

The wife has looked at the pictures of my son and daughter and remarked that neither looks like my husband.

There is a reason for that; I was impregnated by donor sperm from separate men (wasn't really a donation; we had to pay for it). Only my husband and I know the children's true biological history. I have brushed off the questions, but she persists in asking.

My husband told her: "They look just like the milkman; he was very cute. I never could understand why we didn't get a bill for milk." This hasn't stopped her.

I really would like to stay friends with this couple, but her questioning doesn't stop. I know I can be confrontational ("Why do you keep asking" or "Mind your own business") with her, but that will create more questions. Any suggestions how to curtail the questions and keep a friendship going?

GENTLE READER: Are you sure you want to be friends with someone who asks nosy questions with insulting implications?

Well, all right; that's not up to Miss Manners. She suggests saying: "I don't think you understood that my husband was joking about the milkman. Of course he thought you must be joking to make such remarks. Let's just drop the whole subject."

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In regard to Americans bowing to royalty, I firmly agree with you that bowing in subservience to another person is out of the question. (I would assume that a bow to a Japanese person is different, since both parties bow as a sign of respect.)

But what would be the protocol if one were to meet Queen Elizabeth in England? Would the circumstances change if the visit was at her palace vs. a public venue?

I have no plans to meet any royalty anytime soon, but I am curious as to how it would be handled.

GENTLE READER: Unless, heaven forbid, you are an envoy of the U.S. government who has been sent to deliver a retroactive surrender to our former British rulers, you should not pay obeisance to the queen.

We fought hard not to have to do so. Why give in now? The next thing we knew, she'd be taxing our tea and impressing our sailors.

Miss Manners assures you that the British have now accepted the loss of their American colonies with good grace and do not expect Americans to kneel to their queen anywhere.

Japan is more complicated, quite aside from the fact that we won a war there, too. The order and angle of bowing to different people are both significant, so that unless you are a student of Japanese etiquette, you are likely to be sending wrong, if not insulting, signals.

Fortunately, the Japanese are polite enough to make allowances for ignorant foreigners. As foreign royals generally realize that non-subjects who bow to them are doing so from ignorance, not from the intention to surrender.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How do you handle women who shamelessly flirt with your husband in front of you? This happens frequently at a club we belong to where there are many widows and divorcees -- wealthy women looking for a man.

GENTLE READER: You do not handle them. Your husband does. How you handle him later in private is up to you.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband committed suicide at home. This obviously was a tragic event for me and my young son.

We had a public viewing, and a client, his wife and his daughter attended. This client is, and has continuously been, very abusive to me and my company, and in a recent email accused me of not personally thanking him for attending the viewing by email, card or phone call. I did thank him while at the viewing.

What is appropriate? Should I have sent cards to all attendees?

GENTLE READER: What makes you think that this client might be an authority on etiquette?

His demand to be lauded for the simple decency of paying respects to the dead? His berating you, especially in the midst of such a tragedy? His previously abusive behavior?

Had he written you a letter of memories and condolences, or had he done something helpful -- brought meals, performed errands -- he would have deserved a letter of thanks. Miss Manners assures you that your thanks for his offering you sympathy at the viewing was sufficient. That is, if he did actually offer you any sympathy.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I sometimes stay at hotels where the bathroom is down the hall. May I scurry to the bathroom modestly draped in my wrapper? Or do I need to dress before leaving my room? Is the rule the same on trains?

GENTLE READER: The rule does allow you to scurry to the bathroom without having to dress to go there, undress to bathe, and dress again for the return trip. Not, as in your nightmares, naked, but, as you say, modestly wrapped.

The problem is that this rule is directed at other travelers: They are supposed to consider you invisible until you are ready to present yourself for the day. And people nowadays tend to be blunt, literal-minded and outspoken. Miss Manners therefore recommends keeping the head down and a towel handy to throw over it should anyone along the way make the mistake of addressing you.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I find myself at the mercy of family and friends who, upon finding out that my longtime boyfriend and I are expecting, immediately ask, "When are you getting married?"

I've discussed with them that it's not high on our priority list with a baby on the way and a new house to get settled into, though we'll likely go to a justice of the peace and make it official.

This is not enough, apparently. One wants there to be a ceremony, the other wants her own bouquet, another wants to go dress shopping, and on and on. I appreciate that they want to celebrate with us, and I'm open to doing something in the future for our families and close friends.

At this point, I have enough on my plate and don't need to incur any extra expenses. How do I politely, lovingly keep well-wishers from running away with my marriage, something I consider to belong to my future husband and me?

GENTLE READER: The most compelling reason these people can think of to persuade you to get married before your baby is born is that it would be fun to shop for the dress?

My, my, how things have changed.

However, Miss Manners trusts that you recognize that they are not so much trying to push you into marriage as they are hoping to participate in what they assume you have planned. And a wedding that consists solely of getting married, without hoopla and debt, has become unthinkable.

But whether the motive is to manage your life or merely to enhance their own, you should not enter into a discussion. It creates the illusion that the outcome will be decided by the person who argues better.

Instead, you can use the gentle tone of voice in which the obvious is uttered in order to say, "One thing at a time; one thing at a time." Or, to anyone who argues that you must marry for the sake of the baby, "We'll get to that in the proper order."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We believe a close relative is gay and will shortly be sharing this with his family. What should we say? We will certainly support and love him no matter what gender he prefers, but how do we react? "Oh, OK" seems lacking, somehow.

GENTLE READER: You have told Miss Manners that you will continue to love and support this relative. Why can't you tell him that?

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)