DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife and I like to eat out a lot, but her table manners are bothersome to me, bordering on embarrassing. We are both educated, and she even attended a girls' school growing up. I came from a middle-class family, but was taught to have some manners at the table.

My wife likes to put too large of a portion on her fork, then raises it to her mouth and bites off a piece of whatever she's eating (chicken breast, fish, etc.). I have tried to get her to pick up smaller pieces, but to no avail.

When we are out, I always wonder if others see her doing this and what they must think. How can I get her to use her knife and take smaller bites?

GENTLE READER: Warn her about the dangers of choking -- if not her doing so from the meat, then perhaps your doing so from disgust.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When calling a business or person I do not know and leaving a message, I am in the habit of leaving my telephone number. Nowadays, of course, there is technology that makes this unnecessary, but I am unsure whether the technology is so common that leaving my number wastes the time of the message recipient -- not to mention makes me look (heaven forbid!) old-fashioned.

Conventions, I realize, must at some point yield to reality and common sense. Has that point yet been reached for leaving your telephone number?

GENTLE READER: If Miss Manners approved only conventions that were practical, rather than old-fashioned and unnecessary ones, she would have far fewer useless silver Victorian gadgets cluttering her desk.

Perhaps in lieu of leaving a redundant phone number, we can all promise to leave our full names, clearly spelled and pronounced. This is something that has eluded our technological assistants.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I just had a baby, and my mother-in-law is staying with us to help out. She is fantastic -- truly -- except for one thing: doing laundry. She dumps everything in the same load. Jeans, towels and Velcro bibs often end up in the same cycle as delicate wool sweaters.

She's ruined multiple items. I've asked her to just let me do the laundry, but she'll do it anyway.

How do I gently tell her to separate the laundry according to my preferences? Is that possible without looking ungrateful for all of her help? Other than the laundry issue, I've been blessed with a fantastic MIL. I don't want to hurt her feelings, but I do want to save my clothes!

GENTLE READER: As Miss Manners sees it, you have three choices:

1. Hide the Velcro bibs and delicates and save them to do later when your mother-in-law has left.

2. Tell your mother-in-law, "Please at least let me separate things for you to make the sorting part easier."

Or 3. Let her catch you folding the clothes afterwards whilst good-naturedly saying, "Oh dear! I thought this was my sweater, but now it seems it will be better suited for the baby!"

Unless you want the baby to have a complete new itchy wardrobe, Miss Manners suggests you act on at least one of these choices quickly.

(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: My husband's sister has decided to throw their mother a semiformal dinner party to celebrate her major milestone birthday. The venue will be a trendy, sophisticated restaurant. The hostess has reserved the restaurant's private dining room for the party. A deposit has been placed and invitations have been sent out.

Most of the attendees (including my family and myself) are traveling from out of town to attend. The guest list is under 40 people. I just learned that the private room will only accommodate about 70% of the guests who have RSVP'd thus far. The hostess stated that guests who do not fit in the private room will be seated in the restaurant's main dining room.

It seems rude to seat guests (especially those who traveled from out of town) in a different room than the guest of honor. They will not be able to hear any speeches or toasts, nor see the cake cutting. The room is not even large enough to have all of the guests mingle after dinner.

I am afraid that her mother will feel embarrassed and that some of the guests may feel slighted by their seating assignments. I don't think the hostess realizes that this situation can hurt people's feelings.

Should I volunteer that my family is willing to be seated outside the room in order to free up four seats in the private room for other guests? Or should I just keep my mouth shut and sit where I am told?

GENTLE READER: As the guest of honor is not your mother and the hostess is not your sister, the safest course of action is either not to intervene or, as you suggest, to volunteer to give up your own seats.

Every right-thinking host and hostess tries to avoid unequal seating because of the consequences you anticipate. When it cannot be avoided, the hostess should apologize, make provisions so that those excluded can see and hear, and ask close friends to sit in the second room, possibly designating one as an auxiliary hostess.

What your sister-in-law is thinking eludes Miss Manners. Why go to the trouble of inviting guests if you have no intention of looking after them? Fortunately, you cannot be accused of rudeness if you sit this one out.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My aunt and mother raised me to believe that "if you can't stay, then you don't go." Meaning, it is rude to say to the host/hostess, "I can only stay a little while; I have another party to attend." When one commits to attend a gathering, one does not leave early to attend another.

GENTLE READER: And right your aunt and mother are, even if one can -- if you do not overuse it -- tell the hostess how sorry you are to have to decline her invitation because you are already committed for a later time that day. If the hostess spontaneously answers that she perfectly understands and would rather have you for two hours than none, Miss Manners will not object.

(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: It is now possible to buy wearable recording technology, such as glasses with obvious, built-in video recorders. Some people, including this writer, consider such things to be intrusive, arrogant and rude by design.

The temptation is to grab them off the offending wearer's face and stomp on them, but one recognizes that this would not be courteous. Would a cold, "Kindly remove the surveillance device" do? One would very much appreciate Miss Manners' advice on properly rebuffing the use of this personal privacy nightmare technology.

GENTLE READER: Recording another person without express permission is rude, and the potential subject is well within his or her rights to say, "I request that we all please stop recording so that we can enjoy our time together."

Miss Manners intends for the listener to consider the possibility that the speaker will ensure that the time is not enjoyable, should recording continue. But she adds that any such action must be subtle enough to be deniable later.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am ashamed to admit that I never sent out thank-you notes after my wedding. It was a hectic wedding crammed into a weeklong university break. I did write the notes, and since it was a few months after the event, they said something to the extent of, "We know it's been a while, but we still wanted to thank you for coming and supporting us" -- personalized, of course, with how each person made that day great.

The problem is that I never sent them out. Every time I would go to do it, I'd feel embarrassed that I hadn't done it earlier, and worried it was now tacky. So then I would go to throw them out, but then I would see the names on the envelopes and just get filled with so much gratitude for those who made my special day that much more special.

Soon it will be my fifth wedding anniversary. Is it too tacky to send them out so late? Or should I write new ones, apologize for not sending them sooner and give an update on our life? Or should I just let it go and be better in the future? (Which I have! My thank-you notes for my baby shower went out the very next week!!)

GENTLE READER: The problem with not getting thank-you notes out on time is that when you do write, the letters have to be longer -- not only to contain the apology, but to demonstrate effort and, thereby, contrition.

The assumption, of course, is that the delay is measured in weeks or a small number of months. Not wanting to contemplate the tomes that would atone for five years of neglect, Miss Manners suggests a different approach.

Write a new, chatty letter -- a different letter for each guest, please -- in which you thank them for the original present and make a sincere apology. Close with a humorous, self-deprecating reference to the previously unsent missive, which you will now enclose. If you can make your friends laugh good-naturedly (at you), you may consider the case closed.

(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.)