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1 week ago | 
spokesman.com | Judith Martin |Nicholas Martin |Jacobina Martin
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a Ph.D. student in a college town where the local public bus also serves as the campus bus, and students get free fare. As a result, it is often very crowded, mostly with undergrads. At my advanced age of 30, I have learned (or at least thought I’d learned) that on a very crowded bus, it is accepted practice to get off the bus briefly to let other people off if you are blocking the door. It seems, however, that NO ONE does this.
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1 week ago | 
spokesman.com | Judith Martin |Nicholas Martin |Jacobina Martin
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have had season tickets to the orchestra for a couple of decades. For evening concerts, the orchestra wears white tie, and women soloists wear evening dress. For afternoon concerts, the soloists still wear evening dress, and the men in the orchestra wear black suits, black shirts and black ties. The musicians who are women, however, wear an assortment of black clothes: from black slacks with a regular black shirt to an orchestra musician’s traditional long black dress.
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3 weeks ago | 
spokesman.com | Judith Martin |Nicholas Martin |Jacobina Martin
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I would like to hear your opinion on if “Excuse me” can be rude. In my opinion, if I can see that a person’s activity will only take a minute, it is rude to say, “Excuse me,” and expect them to stop what they’re doing to allow me to accomplish my task. The proper thing to do, in my mind, is to patiently wait my turn. What do you think? GENTLE READER: It depends on the activity.
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3 weeks ago | 
spokesman.com | Judith Martin |Nicholas Martin |Jacobina Martin
DEAR MISS MANNERS: After well over a year of enduring political campaigning, we are quite fatigued from it all. The results were quite disappointing to us. Then our dear neighbor announced they were running for a state district office and requested our substantial financial and fundraising support. While understanding the need for a yearslong strategy, we have concerns. Physically and financially, we are not in a place to participate.
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3 weeks ago | 
spokesman.com | Judith Martin |Nicholas Martin |Jacobina Martin
DEAR MISS MANNERS: Relative to the longstanding tradition of men proposing marriage to women, and in this day of slow (but hopefully inexorable) movement towards gender equity, I wonder if the percent of marriage proposals initiated by women has increased. Should it? GENTLE READER: Sure, it should. In a sensible world, it would hardly matter which half of a couple suggested getting married. But there is nothing sensible about what has happened to marriage proposals.
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4 weeks ago | 
spokesman.com | Judith Martin |Nicholas Martin |Jacobina Martin
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a friend, Nora, whom I have known since high school. She now lives in a nearby town, but too far to just make a visit for the day, so when we do get together, it requires a weekend stay for her and her husband. We do get along and enjoy their visit, except for one thing. When I entertain, I like to plan all the food and prepare it in advance so I don’t spend a lot of time cooking while they are here.
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1 month ago | 
spokesman.com | Judith Martin |Nicholas Martin |Jacobina Martin
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was on a flight and sitting in the aisle seat. The middle seat and window seat were occupied by strangers. The plane had landed, and people were standing in the aisle waiting for the door to open. I remained seated, waiting for the aisle to clear. The woman in the window seat reached over and poked me, telling me to stand up. I have severe hearing loss. I wear a hearing aid and an implant. I’m not sure if she had been trying to tell me this and I hadn’t heard her. I was infuriated.
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1 month ago | 
spokesman.com | Judith Martin |Nicholas Martin |Jacobina Martin
DEAR MISS MANNERS: As a frequent tourist, I take lots of photos wherever I go. I try not to be intrusive, but it isn’t feasible to ask permission of anonymous people in public spaces, and U.S. courts have ruled that nobody has a right to privacy in such settings. Everyone carries a phone these days, and the number of people taking photos has increased dramatically as a result. Candid photos are much more interesting than posed photos or photos without people.
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1 month ago | 
spokesman.com | Judith Martin |Nicholas Martin |Jacobina Martin
DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our group of friends is about 15 people large. We have known each other for over three decades. At the opposite end of the group is a couple that we only see if the entire group gets together. We like to entertain and have invited this couple for years. They have never accepted our invitations, though they accept invitations from others in the group. In some cases, they RSVP “no,” but other times they do not reply at all. Finally, we hosted a party and decided not to invite them.
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1 month ago | 
spokesman.com | Judith Martin |Nicholas Martin |Jacobina Martin
DEAR MISS MANNERS: My child’s school is having a staff appreciation week, which isn’t a bad idea, given the effort they put in and how they enhance our kids’ lives. What strikes me as extremely gauche, however, is that it’s organized and run by the school, while asking parents to contribute. This seems like the kind of thing that parents should organize if they want to, rather than being pressured into it by the school. If the administration wants to do it themselves, then they should fund it.
