DEAR MISS MANNERS: I've heard a few people using the phrase "Don't you want to ..." as a way to disguise nosy, unsolicited opinions. For instance:

"Don't you want to stop renting that apartment and just buy a house?"

"Since you've adopted two children, don't you want to have a biological one?"

"Don't you want to take a break from working and just travel for a while?"

None of these are my own situation, but I find this tactic irritating. A person would already be doing (or attempting) these things if they wanted to and were able to.

If pointing out this rudeness in others is rude, what is the appropriate response?

GENTLE READER: "Of course we thought about that ..." and then let the sentence trail off, along with your ever-so-slightly condescending expression.

Miss Manners warns you not to be surprised when your busybody friends follow up with, "Don't you want to finish that sentence?"

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a terrible gardener. Fifteen years ago, I planted an avocado tree. It lost all the fruit immediately, and it was more than 10 years before it grew more. Three avocados, to be exact.

In the years since, the tree has yielded a few more avocados each season, sometimes as many as nine or 10. I count them when they appear, and look forward to enjoying one avocado a week for nine or 10 weeks, picking them accordingly.

One friend asked for an avocado. I did not want to give up one of my few fruits, but I did anyway. Knowing the peculiarities of my avocados, I warned her that she should wait at least two weeks before cutting into it.

She didn't do this. Instead, she cut it open when she believed she had waited long enough, and found it unripe. She threw it away, thereby wasting one of my precious treats.

When another acquaintance asked me about the fruit, I said vaguely, "There aren't very many." She begged me for one anyway. I fear the same thing will happen, although I will not ask about it.

I'm sorry to be stingy, but is there a polite way to say no to people who ask me for this fruit?

GENTLE READER: "I am afraid that my gardening skills are lacking and the fruit from my tree is barely edible. When both my tree and I get better at this, I will be happy to share."

And then, Miss Manners suggests, you enjoy your one piece a week with the shades drawn.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is your opinion on replying to a compliment with "I know"? My children have tried to assure me it is the appropriate response for the new generation, but it rankles me every time. Has "thank you" really gone out of fashion?

GENTLE READER: Amusingly, this approach may be an overcorrection of the equally irksome response -- "No, I look terrible!" -- some older generations had adopted.

Miss Manners assures you that neither brazen confirmation nor self-deprecating denial is necessary when given a compliment. "Thank you" is the only proper response, fashionable or not. It is timeless.

(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: For the last 30 years, my wife and I have enjoyed hosting dinner parties at our house. Over the last few years, several guests have started showing up with their own bottled water or with a filled exercise water bottle, which they drink from throughout the night.

We've never said anything about it and we're not offended, although we do think it's a little weird. Do you think bringing your own water is rude?

By the way, we have plenty of bottled and filtered water. It's even chilled.

GENTLE READER: Perhaps you can put a sign to that effect on your door: "Chilled water available here." But then, your guests might use your home as a filling station.

Miss Manners finds it equally weird and somewhat insulting to take one's own water to private homes. It removes the opportunity for the host to graciously offer a beverage -- or assumes that anything offered will be unsatisfactory. She therefore requests that unless there is a medical issue, water bottle usage be restricted to gyms and cars only. And so it has been decreed.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am puzzled by an answer I get from my young adult children when I ask them a question.

Q: "Would you like some coffee?"

A: "I'm OK."

Q: "I'm going for a walk, would you like to join me?"

A: "I'm OK."

I've surmised that it means "no, thank you." When asked the other day if I needed the trash taken out, I replied, "I'm not OK," thinking that it meant "yes, please," only to have my son look at me oddly.

Am I the only one bothered by this new saying?

GENTLE READER: We all know you did not really think that "I'm not OK" meant "yes, please" -- but Miss Manners commends you for the effort. And agrees that the original phrase is annoying.

She supposes that it is meant to indicate that its speaker is perfectly content and requires no additional sustenance or activity. Or pesky follow-up questions.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When getting together with a friend for a meal, she always asks for my opinions while looking at the menu. For instance, which dressing to get on her salad; which of two appetizers to choose; whether having the soup will be too much.

If I don't respond with a specific answer, she pushes for one. Upon occasion, she will comment when our food arrives that she would have preferred the other choice, or criticizes my decision.

How should I respond to her menu questions -- and then to any criticism that comes about from my answers?

GENTLE READER: "Are you asking because you want my opinion or because my answer will prompt you to realize what you really wanted all along?"

Said with a smile, Miss Manners hopes this will make your friend realize the unfair trap she is setting. And it is preferable to, "Stop asking, especially if you don't want to hear the answer."

(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 son-in-law (age 45) tells me that his generation finds it OK to invite a woman to dinner without her husband. He and my daughter do not like my second husband, and want to invite me, alone, to dinner with them at their house.

I feel that it is unacceptable manners and an awful snub to my husband to dine without him (unless it is a work-related event). Lunch is OK, I think -- I often meet women friends for lunch, but not dinner, without their husbands. Can you weigh in on this?

GENTLE READER: When your daughter was 11 and told you that all of her friends' parents let them stay up until midnight on school nights, did you believe her?

Perhaps, but Miss Manners' answer -- one she would have you make to your daughter in private -- is that it is not her husband's generation's feelings that are being hurt by excluding your husband.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was very close to my mom. When she passed away unexpectedly 10 years ago, I was quite devastated. I returned to my home (about 700 miles away) following the funeral, and a concerned friend offered to pick me up and take me out for a cup of coffee.

I will say, the idea of someone caring lifted my spirits. But in the car on the way to the coffee shop, my friend said, "Well, it is something we all go through." It was said in a rather "oh well" kind of way -- cold and lacking empathy.

It felt like my friend was ignoring the depth of what I was experiencing. It felt like a knife had been stabbed into my heart. Honestly, I wanted to just jump out of the car and walk home!

I will never forget that moment, and to this day, I wonder what the best words to say would have been. Could you please advise? Yes, I still miss my mom. I always will. Maybe my friend didn't realize just how calloused they were.

GENTLE READER: Your experience illustrates why Miss Manners urges everyone not to improvise when consoling mourners; grief can be both intense and irrational.

On a rational level, it seems unlikely that your friend picked you up after the funeral, took you out for coffee and drove you home because they lacked empathy for your situation. But it is all too easy to cause lasting rifts at such a time with a misplaced word -- or even with one that, though not the formulaic "I'm so sorry for your loss," strikes the mourner the wrong way.

Having now addressed herself to everyone else, Miss Manners will only add that she is sorry for your loss and believes that your friend was, too.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the appropriate response when a gift receiver criticizes the gift you chose for them? For example, my in-laws, who are from a different cultural background than me, frequently (almost always) express criticism at my gifts.

GENTLE READER: Although she is unaware of any culture that values insulting gift-givers, Miss Manners remains confident that "I'm sorry you don't like it" transcends cultural barriers.

(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.)