DEAR MISS MANNERS: One evening, quite late at night, I received a long, impassioned text from a stranger by mistake. In it, he talked about having had a "wonderful few hours" with someone and hoped to see them again. He also revealed some personal insecurities about their time together that are, obviously, none of my business.

I’m aware that sometimes, to avoid the difficulties of being honest about how one feels, a person may give a phony phone number to someone they do not plan to see again. In this case, it seems I was the unlucky lotto number.

How can I handle this in a way that is polite and spares the sender any embarrassment? Is it best to reply to the text right away and tell them, "I'm sorry, but you have the wrong number," as we do on the phone?

Or is the mortification I’d inflict on this person -- since they’d know I’d read their private message -- an ethical no-no, and it’s best just to delete the text and move on?

GENTLE READER: The eternal question is: Would you rather know the truth, or would you not? And the irony is that most people would rather know, but then chicken out when it is their turn to do the actual confrontation.

Miss Manners suggests that you simply tell the person that this was the wrong number. Let them draw their own conclusions as to why. There is always the chance that they typed it wrong. Even though we both know that it is unlikely.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a last name that my family has pronounced a particular way through the generations, and that most English speakers, looking at the name, pronounce in a more phonetic way.

If somebody asks me how I pronounce it, I tell them, but if somebody goes ahead and pronounces it the phonetic way, I never correct them -- partly because it seems a little rude, but mainly because I don’t care.

An old friend, though, has learned that she’s been mispronouncing my name for several decades now. She told me I was rude not to correct her in the first place and spare her the embarrassment of “saying it wrong” all these years.

Should I preemptively correct people if I’m not bothered by what they’re saying?

GENTLE READER: Not caring is as good and refreshing a reason as Miss Manners has heard for not being rude.

Still, for the sake of your friendship, you might tell your friend, “It never bothered me and frankly I am so used to hearing it the way you say it that it didn’t occur to me to correct you. But I certainly never wanted to be rude or make you feel bad. Please forgive me.”

In the future, if it comes up otherwise in conversation, of course you may politely tell someone the proper pronunciation. To wit: “The English are so funny about their H’s. It’s actually properly pronounced Shufflebottom, not Shufflebotham, as it’s spelled.”

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: At a dinner party, my companion quietly excused herself after the meal to smoke a cigarette. She went outside, over our nonsmoking hostess’s protestations that inside was fine.

As I escorted my friend outside, I heard a fellow guest, the wife of a mutual acquaintance, shriek, “What? She SMOKES?” in a tone that would have been appropriate only if my companion had excused herself to murder people or purchase heroin. I ignored it, but I felt like I should have said something.

Is this kind of behavior going to become conventionally accepted as smoking is increasingly stigmatized?

GENTLE READER: One may have health concerns for those close to you who smoke -- or for yourself, if people smoke around you -- but there are legitimate ways to express those concerns. The case you describe fits neither.

This does not, however, entitle you to borrow your companion’s cigarette so that you can return to the dinner table and put it out in the rude guest’s entree. Miss Manners suggests you tell your smoking companion that you are sorry for the rudeness shown her -- and be grateful that at least the perpetrator was insecure enough to frame it as a loud stage whisper rather than a full-throated lecture to your companion’s face.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’ve been given a budget to take some out-of-town folks to dinner the day before a conference. I emailed an invitation to everyone, and received back a lot of replies indicating that they were accepting -- and bringing a spouse.

I was a little surprised. Now I’m over budget, and I think I’m in trouble. Is this really my fault? Did I not word the invitation properly?

I’m at a loss for how to word an invite without sounding like I’m assuming they could bring someone unless I told them not to. What should I do next year -- demand the budget be expanded to cover extra people, just in case?

GENTLE READER: Where is your boss in all this?

Miss Manners asks because, while she is happy to get you out of this mess, she wants you to understand that this is a business operations issue, like the other hundreds you face every year.

You are not entertaining these people because you don’t have enough work during the day, nor because these people are your friends, nor because it is your idea of a good time. You are doing it because someone believes that it is in the business's interests that these customers/clients/employees be made to feel welcome while attending the conference.

In formulating the budget, no one thought to include spouses. With the benefit of experience, this was a mistake in judgment, as it leaves behind spouses who have made the trip and thought to participate in after-hours events.

Rather than demanding anything, you should be asking what your boss feels is of most value. Is it better to incur the added expense of inviting spouses, to incur the cost of displeasing these people, or to drop the preconference meal?

You are hoping there is a fourth option -- to convince these people to attend happily without their spouses -- but you already know there is not.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We attended a charity event for a homeless shelter -- an event we have gone to for several years. This time, there was a guest speaker who was a former client of the shelter.

This gentleman had gone there when he was homeless and fresh out of jail. He spoke for 45 minutes, which I thought was way too long, and he included details about how he used to be a gang member, how his wife stole cars and how his youngest child was conceived at the shelter. He also talked at length about how all of this led to him becoming a born-again Christian.

Would it be wrong to give feedback to the shelter director that this speech was too long and too detailed? It was a turn-off for me!

GENTLE READER: Prior to dinner, did you make two online purchases, register at a website, drop a child at school, and go to a doctor’s appointment? And in every one of these encounters, were you asked if the exchange met your expectations and to give feedback? Were you then able to post your opinion about every other aspect of your day on your various social media feeds?

Miss Manners suspects that if she has the specifics wrong, she has the gist right: You have had more than enough opportunities to voice your opinion about everything.

Should you also tell the people who fed you about the things you didn’t like at their event? Did they even ask?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: The homes in our neighborhood have very prominent “No soliciting” signs on the front doors. This usually does not stop various salespeople from ringing our doorbells and continually knocking on our door, as they can see through our open curtains that we are home.

They always seem incredulous when I yell “The sign says 'No soliciting'; that means you!” at them when they are standing in my yard, looking right at me through my living room window.

It feels rude to yell at strangers, but it also feels like they are trespassing and violating my privacy when they disregard my signage and look into my home. What would you have me do in the future?

GENTLE READER: Your request for stronger measures -- after admitting to the practice of yelling, at strangers, loudly enough to be heard through a closed window -- not unnaturally makes Miss Manners stop to think before she responds.

Is this a case of one straggler per week who, though annoying, could be either ignored or turned away at the door with a brusque “No thank you”? Or is there a line of salespeople jostling at the gate, day and night, whose comings and goings are keeping the baby awake?

Before we start building fences, investing in locks or calling the police, have you tried identifying the company whose representatives these are? If the repetition and intrusiveness is as seriously invasive as you suggest -- and you can keep your tone icily civil when you complain -- you can let the company’s attorneys deal with possible illegalities.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)