Wait Until You Can Prove Charge

Dear Miss Manners: This is an etiquette question about playing cards. My partner and I play marathon bridge; every month we meet a different couple in a large group, and our scores are then sent to our chairman. At the end of the year we have a big bridge party and the winners and their prizes are announced.

Last month we played with someone I will call Mary. She is noted for being a poor loser.

In the two rounds before playing with Mary and her partner, my partner and I did not get good cards and we were beaten roundly. I happened to know that in those two rounds Mary and her partner had big scores.

Well, when we played Mary and her partner, my partner and I were getting good cards for a change. But about halfway through our game, Mary said, “I am going to change cards so the scores will be more even.” I asked her if she also did that when she was winning. She dodged that question.

Frankly, I was incensed at her rudeness and poor sportsmanship. Was it ethical for her to do this? What do you think of this? (We beat them anyway.)

Gentle Reader: Miss Manners was wrestling with an ethical problem herself - whether she was obliged to remind you of old-fashioned behavior toward people who cheat at cards, which ensures that they are unable to do this again - when she realized something peculiar.

These people changed the deck under suspicious circumstances - but then you beat them. With the deck they chose.

While it is easier to protest cheating, being a poor sport is a violation of social rules. You could tell the chairman confidentially that you find Mary to be a poor sport, provided you do not expect her to be expelled on the spot. Miss Manners trusts that you will be a good sport about waiting discreetly until your charge is supported enough to justify protecting the integrity of the group.

Dear Miss Manners: Our daughter has refused to wear the engagement ring she was given, as it is not to her liking. I was under the impression that the groom-to-be gave the engagement ring as a gift. My daughter says that she should have picked it out herself. Could you shed some light on this?

Gentle Reader: Yes - your daughter is engaged to the wrong gentleman. Or perhaps it is the gentleman who is engaged to the wrong lady.

Miss Manners is not saying that a young lady and the gentleman she adores might not have different ideas about the jewelry she is going to wear for a lifetime. Unless the gentleman has a family ring to bestow, he should have a pretty good idea of her taste if he is planning to buy the ring himself and surprise her.

But although this choice did not succeed in pleasing your daughter, he hardly deserves the slap she gave him by treating his offering with contempt. Had she any regard for his feelings, she would have worn it during the engagement and gradually left off wearing it after the wedding, having first taken care to show an enthusiastic interest in selecting the wedding ring.