That’s One Strange Table Mate

Dear Miss Manners: I went out with a man who insisted on buttering my bread, cutting my meat and even feeding me a little during dinner. When I rejected his offers, he was offended and did not understand.

Recently, I went out with this man and his new girlfriend. He offered her the same gestures, and she appreciated them and let him do all for her.

To what extent shall a gentleman serve his date at the table?

Gentle Reader: Miss Manners has been hoping against hope that you are the gentleman’s elder daughter, who now feels mature enough to handle the basics of eating unassisted and that the other lady is your younger sister, who doesn’t.

But you use the term girlfriend, which indicates a romantic relationship. And a mighty peculiar one at that.

It is true that gallantry includes doing things for others that they can perfectly well do for themselves - opening doors, pulling out chairs, giving the order to the waiter. Miss Manners retains a fondness for these little niceties, although she recognizes that we are gradually shifting from a system that accords them to ladies, to one more based on age.

But this is no time to be adding to the old repertoire. In particular, the innovations of this gentleman strike Miss Manners as scary. She thinks you wise to have declined to participate in this spectacle, and can only wonder how you can bear to watch it.

Dear Miss Manners: My teachers loved me for my voice, which was always clear and audible in the classroom. However, in my work - I have been employed as a librarian in a public library system for nearly 27 years - I am finding this same positive trait to be a liability.

Perhaps it is the goldfish-bowl design of the library; perhaps it is the terrible climate of political correctness in which we live, where library “customers” (as we are now supposed to call them) feel free to criticize the staff at will. Management even makes it easy for them by supplying a suggestion box in every branch!

I am frequently spoken to by patrons who say that my speaking to other patrons or fellow staff members disturbs them. Inevitably, I apologize without further comment.

I always find these experiences upsetting, infuriating, sometimes humiliating. If I were elsewhere than at work, I might react more aggressively. However, as a public servant, I feel I can do little.

Gentle Reader: You could lower your voice, literally as well as emotionally. Those customers of yours are trying to read.

That is why people go to libraries. And that is why the etiquette prevailing in libraries, unlike that appropriate to classroom discussions, requires quiet.

It worries Miss Manners that in 27 years you have not learned that. Rather than feeling insulted or dreaming of aggressive (which is to say, rude) responses, you might consider that a frequently made complaint probably has merit. And that it is a good idea to have a suggestion box in places managed by people who might otherwise be oblivious to the obvious.

Dear Miss Manners: How is a Dame of the British Empire addressed in correspondence? Which are the correct salutations and closings?

Gentle Reader: Are you writing to ask her to tea, or to suggest something she might do for your empire?

Miss Manners does not ask out of vulgar curiosity. She asks because there are different forms for social and business usage.

Socially, one would begin “Dear Dame Edith,” but in business correspondence it would be “Dear Madam.” Closings are the same as for your other correspondence - “Sincerely yours” for social letters, and “Very truly yours” for business.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate