Living Relatives Are Numbered
Dear Miss Manners: We’re expecting a boy, and would like to name him after my husband, who is the “IV” in his family. However, when my husband was born, all three namesakes before him were alive.
Although his grandfather and great-grandfather are now deceased, my husband still uses the numeral to differentiate himself from his father, the “III.” Is it proper to name our son the “V”? Or do we start over again with the same name without any numeral?
If it is improper to name our son the “V” because five namesakes are no longer alive, how did we get a Louis XIV?
Gentle Reader: Well, how did we get a Louis XIV? Historians have been asking themselves that for years.
He is not, however, related to your case. The etiquette of royalty - wearing ermine tails for dress-up, making people walk backwards to leave their presence and so on - has a limited application to the rest of us.
Reigning monarchs are numbered so that schoolchildren can be forced to memorize history. Among us commoners, the numbers are supposed to be used only to distinguish living people from one another.
But every time Miss Manners dares mention this, she gets outraged letters from people who are attached to their place on the list and consider these designations unchanging parts of their names. She refuses to fight with these people, because she concedes that their desire to pick what they want to be called takes precedence even over correctness.
However, you have asked what is correct. It is that your father-in-law use the name alone, your husband now use Junior, and your son be the III.
Dear Miss Manners: We have plenty of room for out-of-town friends and their children to stay comfortably, and I enjoy entertaining. I love my friends dearly, but I cannot stand their children.
After spending hours preparing a large meal for everyone, why must I have to put up with curled lips, sickening noises and whines of displeasure?
I do not understand why a child cannot simply and politely ask his mother for something different to eat. I do not run a restaurant, but I am not opposed to opening a can of spaghetti or making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to appease a picky eater.
I cannot tell my friends how to raise their children, but I do not allow that behavior in my home. My child is only 2 years old, but please and thank you are already a part of his vocabulary.
When I tell a friend’s child that talking back and rudeness are not allowed, it usually evokes, “I don’t like you” and tears.
Gentle Reader: Not only may you not tell your friends how to rear their children, but you may not instruct their children in front of them. You are obliged to treat all your guests as guests - even when they are small, rude guests.
Fortunately for you, Miss Manners is unwilling to leave it at that. She has polite ways for you to make it clear that guests of all sizes have an equal obligation to be polite.
The next time a child scorns the food, say in a very serious tone, directly to the child, “I’m sorry you don’t like the food. I wanted to please you and I made things I hoped you would like. I can see you don’t like them and I feel bad about that.”
Even mannerless children are not usually so hardhearted as to reply, “Well, I don’t, so there!”
The point, however, is that their parents will have been served notice that you do not take this rude criticism in stride, as they doubtless do at their own dinner tables.
xxxx
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate