Miss Manners: Identifying the head of the table

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is proper placement at a dining table? Specifically, where is the head of the table?

GENTLE READER: The head of the table is where the host is seated. Miss Manners presumes you are asking in your capacity as host, and not as a guest, but the answer is the same.

The only difference is that, if the table itself does not make the answer obvious, then you will need to convey that information so no one sits in your chair. This can be accomplished with place cards or by telling guests individually where they are to sit, both of which are less work than constructing a dais or procuring fan-bearers.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When one person is already in a narrow hallway, and another person comes down the stairs and tries to enter the hallway and pass by the person already in the hallway, what should happen?

GENTLE READER: Who yields place to let another pass is generally determined by factors other than physical location, such as age, gender, ability (or disability) and even visibility (of the space or the people). But in very narrow spaces, where there may be a limited number of places to go when getting out of the way, Miss Manners is content to have the person closer to the pull-off give way.

She notes that your question was more open-ended (“what should happen”), but if the situation you are describing involves, for example, two newlyweds who have just moved into a first apartment, what may happen in tight quarters is not, first, an etiquette question.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: If someone is riding in the back seat of a car with friends, and the driver drops off the other friends first, should the remaining one in the back seat move up to the front seat?

GENTLE READER: Etiquette encourages this without demanding it, although Miss Manners takes into account the distance to the final destination, the outside weather conditions and the car speed at the time the previous friend disembarked.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Years ago, when gentlemen walked on the outside of a woman when walking along the street, the way I heard it was that it was to protect the lady from threats. Was this, or is this still, the case?

GENTLE READER: It was and is the case (although other countries always put the lady on the gentleman’s right), and threats from the street have not, unfortunately, disappeared.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Could you please tell me proper etiquette for a wedding reception that has now been changed to a “pre-elopement party”? Does this call for the same gift as a wedding?

GENTLE READER: The pre-elopement party is a new one on Miss Manners. She is inclined to classify it still as a wedding reception – for which presents, though perhaps appreciated, are not customary. She assumes that the guests are not expected to bring ladders to abet the impending escape.