DEAR MISS MANNERS: When someone sends out an email invitation to multiple people, how should you respond? Just to the person who sent it, or “reply to all”? I usually respond to all, but I’m wondering if this has been rude.
GENTLE READER: In sending a single invitation to multiple people, your host obscured the nature of the communication, which was a series of separate invitations to individual people; etiquette sees no direct connection between the invitation to Mary and the one to Bob. The proper response by the guest is therefore to the host, not the entire list.
Miss Manners recognizes that this means that Mary -- who, after the divorce, has stopped attending parties at which Bob will be present -- will have to find some other means of divining his location. But it cuts down on a great deal of unnecessary email, an outcome she recognizes as beneficial even if she is not as passionate about extraneous email as some of her Gentle Readers.
(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.)