Kids’, Pets’ Names Go Below Parents’

Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I do not have children. We do have a dog whom we love, but we treat him like a dog, not like a child.

My mother always taught me that in signing cards, I, as the author or writer, should put my name last. When I sign our Christmas and birthday cards, I put my husband’s name first, then the dog’s, then my own. This has prompted much teasing from family and friends, so I decided to seek your opinion.

While I’m on the subject, if we did have children, would my name preface theirs? I’m not even going to ask where the dog’s name should go in that case. Thank you for your time on such an inane issue.

Gentle Reader: What do you mean, inane? Miss Manners is putting some deep thought into this question. It’s not something she can just pluck from the precedence tables of tradition, you know. There are no such decrees as “Dogs take precedence over minor children, but parakeets outrank only infants.”

This can be explained by the fact that dogs do not generally carry on correspondence. Even people who are fond of them tend not to think of them as the sort of friend who expects to exchange greeting cards. And those who do not have their own pets are amused by any suggestion of their being equivalent to human beings.

But come to think of it, the same can all be said of other people’s children, and there is precedence for putting children’s names on cards sent by their parents. So unless you want to cut out this practice entirely, and resume it only with people who complain that your dog is neglecting them, perhaps we should go with that.

Here we get around the problem of writing order and family order by using a class system. This is designed not so much to discriminate against children as to avoid confusing the recipient.

You don’t want your acquaintances saying, “Here’s a card from Keith, Emma and - wait a minute! Didn’t Keith used to be married to Vanessa? How old do you suppose this one is? I thought only girls under 12 are named Emma. What do you suppose is going on? Oh, wait, here’s Vanessa - `Max and Vanessa.’ So she’s married again, too, either to an old guy or a very young one, and they’re all still friendly. You never know.”

Therefore, the card a wife writes is signed “Keith and Vanessa,” maybe even with a surname or two, and when children are added, there is a line underneath with their given names in birth order. In your case, the second line would be “and Voltaire,” or whatever your dog’s name is. Miss Manners doesn’t remember because she hasn’t heard from him in years.

Dear Miss Manners: A friend and I were discussing appropriate dress for a wedding planned on a sandy beach. Guests must go down a long set of steps and cross the sand. The climate will be very unpredictable and could range from cold, wet fog to sun, with the temperature between 50 and 75 degrees. What should we wear?

Gentle Reader: Parkas and sunscreen.

Although the hosts can set the style of a wedding, they cannot expect their guests to omit whatever sensible protection the situation requires. Miss Manners cannot have people who give skydiving weddings pouting that parachutes would spoil the look.

Besides, they chose the style when they decided to get married on a beach, where formality would be ridiculous. The only question, which Miss Manners is afraid you will have to garner from the style of the invitation or ask your hosts, is whether this is the high end of informality, with the ladies in pastel garden party dresses, the gentlemen in blazers, and both in shoes they can easily take off in the sand and carry - or the low end, which Miss Manners prefers not to contemplate.