DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a college professor and have been teaching online since the beginning of the pandemic. I was corresponding via email with my dean about an issue with a student I had never met in person. My dean had met the student in person in the past, but not recently.

In the course of managing the issue, I became aware that the student in question uses the gender-neutral pronouns "they/them." When I learned this, I switched to using those pronouns. My dean continued using the masculine pronouns "he/him."

I was a bit flummoxed. I didn't want to correct my dean, because that seemed rude to her. On the other hand, switching to "they/them" without explanation seemed awkward (both socially and grammatically). On the third hand, I felt like I was letting down the student by failing to stand up for their gender identity to my professional superior.

I should note two things: First, the student's issue was not related to their gender identity. Two, my dean is the kind of person who would want to use a person's pronouns out of consideration.

What should I have done?

GENTLE READER: It seems clear to Miss Manners that your well-meaning dean simply wasn't paying attention, or mistook your attempts for the plural. A simple, "I believe that Taden uses the pronouns 'they/them'" should be all that is needed to correct the mistake.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it acceptable to cut multiple pieces of steak at a time, or should you cut as you eat?

GENTLE READER: The latter. Unless you are doing it for someone who otherwise might be in danger of choking, or stabbing.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: About three years ago, a good friend gave me a debit card as thanks for some favors I did for her. I had never had a gift card or debit card before. It was issued by a national financial company, at a major national store chain.

In the years since receiving it, I have not found one store willing to take it -- not even the chain where it was purchased! Their only reason is, "We don't take gift cards." I had thought that, since it says "debit" on it, it would be considered the same as cash.

I wonder whether this friend has spent money on these cards for others. Should I tell her that I've been unable to redeem mine? (I would do so solely because I would hate for her to continue to purchase these cards if they're just a waste of her hard-earned money. I would refuse a replacement gift, if offered!) Would that be similar to telling her a gift arrived unusable because it was broken?

GENTLE READER: A store that does not accept its own gift cards?

Miss Manners would think that your friend would definitely want to have this information -- even if it is three years after the fact. You could slip it into conversation casually, "You know, I never could get that very generous gift card to work. The store said they didn't accept them. Can you imagine?"

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Why is it bad manners to correct someone's grammar?

Being someone who dealt with the English language in their profession, we tried, and brought our children up, to at least say, if not spell, words and phrases correctly, and to use correct terms. Unfortunately, them being in school and being exposed to their peers' (and even teachers'!) mispronunciations, it didn't always work.

An example: When one of my children was in high school, they had to write about some subject. Though there were many spelling and punctuation errors and wrongly used words, the teacher gave them a high mark. I was appalled and asked the teacher why they didn't correct any of it. The reply: "Because you know what they mean."

As for the spoken word, there are SO many instances where people sound uneducated. I'm not saying one has to be an English major, but one should at least sound halfway literate. I, myself, have been corrected for mispronouncing words, and am grateful for it. I'd prefer to not sound like an idiot.

Why do people get angry at being corrected, calling others the "grammar police"? You would think they'd instead be grateful for knowing how to correctly pronounce a word. The correction isn't made to embarrass, but to educate.

I've seen people roll their eyes or smirk at someone who's mispronounced a word, when they could instead let them know the correct pronunciation. So this person will always mispronounce that word, forever having others roll their eyes or smirk. Which would they rather have: possible embarrassment for a second or two, or an eternity of smirks and being thought uneducated?

As for the written word, that would follow the spoken word. If you don't know how to speak correctly, you can't correctly write it.

Also, unfortunately, it's these same people who grow up to be educators -- teachers of every kind -- who perpetuate these same errors because THEY were never corrected for fear of offending them. So now we have adults who say things like "all the sudden" for "all of a sudden"; "so fun" for "so much fun" (one of my greatest peeves. MUCH. So MUCH fun); "for all intensive purposes" for "for all intents and purposes"; "meantime" for "in the meantime"; "doggy-dog world" for "dog-eat-dog world," etc.

GENTLE READER: You make a compelling case that we should all be educated. But that does not make it polite to point out that others are not.

However, as you have stated that you would be grateful to be corrected, Miss Manners trusts that you will be glad to hear that she noticed that you split infinitives, follow a singular noun with a plural pronoun, and use the objective case before a gerund.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I received an invitation to a wedding where the apparel is "cocktail dress/little black dress." Do we have to comply?

GENTLE READER: Yes to the cocktail part, not necessarily to the little or black. "Little" is relative, and if black as a suitable wedding color rattles you, as it does Miss Manners, she condones your wearing navy -- and pleading ignorance.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it OK to send a sympathy card to someone at the office? How do you acknowledge the passing of a co-worker's loved one? Or do you at all?

I heard from a friend that a former co-worker's mom passed, and I sent a card to her at the office. It's a very small, family-like organization and I didn't think much about it.

Then, a current co-worker's sister died, and I wasn't sure what to do. We live in different states and he wasn't in the office anyway. I had his home address from the staff directory, but that seemed creepy. I ended up offering condolences at the end of an email when he returned to work. (I'm cringing thinking about it.) Are any of these things OK?

GENTLE READER: How to acknowledge the death of someone who is important to a co-worker is an easy question to answer: Write a letter.

The purpose of such communications is to acknowledge the significance of the person's loss, to demonstrate sympathy and to express a desire to ease their burden.

Store-bought cards with preprinted sentiments, signed by a crowd, require such minimal effort that they are unlikely to provide real comfort. They exist, Miss Manners suspects, because no one wants to write those letters, yet no one has the confidence that anyone else is writing, either.

Yet those who sign such cards appreciate, as they should, how it would feel to lose someone close to you and hear nothing from the organization where you spend most of your waking hours.

Letters, then, are the answer -- but who should write them? In a company that actually cares about its employees, everyone should be confident that the first letter will come from the boss -- and possibly the second from the boss's boss. Co-workers can then write, or not, depending on their closeness to the mourner.

And for all the bosses who are recoiling in horror, Miss Manners coldly points out that this simple act of compassion is more likely to win workers over than truckloads of doughnuts from human resources around the holidays.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We have a group of people who play mahjong online. We use videoconferencing, too, so that we can talk. Often there are nine people playing.

Two of the people have allergies, and continually sniff during the game. Two others have allergies, but use a tissue and don't sniff. Is there a way to tactically ask the sniffers to use tissues? We've even asked if they need a tissue, and they say "no." It's very annoying.

GENTLE READER: New technology so often introduces new manners challenges that it pleases Miss Manners when it can instead be used to solve old manners problems -- tactfully, as well as tactically.

You cannot correct other people's hygiene unless it can be separated from correcting their manners. Correcting their technical difficulties is comparatively easy: "Discover" that when their microphones are left on, others hear (unspecified) background noise, and ask that they mute themselves when not speaking.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)