Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Dear Miss Manners:

I'm an old guy (60) and as guys we don't want to be invited to or attend office wedding and baby showers. In my day, these were by and for women.

Fine. If they like them, go for it.

But we don't like them, and we don't want to go to them. We all complain about it among ourselves, but none of us has the testosterone-makers to tell the women at the office to leave us off the guest list.

How do we get the message out? Stop the madness. Leave us guys out!

Trust Miss Manners: You don't want to make this a gender issue.

Not unless your idea of manly fun is to have the shower contingent challenge the sensitivity of your feelings toward your female colleagues at tender moments in their lives.

Plus, they are bound to point out to you that as many males as females get married and have children.

But wait. Miss Manners has a plan to strengthen your case.

Make it a workplace issue. The case you should make is that personal celebrations (which includes birthdays as well as marriages and births) should not be celebrated in the office. Unlike retirement or promotion parties, they do not relate to work matters and should be celebrated with friends on their own time. Colleagues who have become friends will presumably want to be involved, but those with merely a working relationship should not be conscripted.

Yes, there will be those who protest at your heartlessness. But the gentlemen are already on your side, and you will be joined by those ladies who are tired of donating money, being tempted to eat cake and having their work interrupted for social celebrations on behalf of people with whom they have no real social relationship.

Dear Miss Manners:

One of your gentle readers used the phrase "people of breeding," and indicated that they knew certain rules of etiquette. I cannot help but think of dogs and horses as objects of breeding rather than people.

Is the phrase still an acceptable way to refer to people well-versed in basic etiquette?

People do breed, Miss Manners is given to understand. But you are quite right that those who believe that it is something about which to brag in public cannot be considered polite.

Dear Miss Manners:

At my mother's house, I was just hanging out and having a drink, which I was slurping. When my mother realized I was slurping, she said it was rude to slurp, but we did not have any company. I know it is rude to slurp in public, but is it rude to slurp in private?

No, but you were not in private. You were in the company of your mother.

Feeling incorrect? E-mail your etiquette questions to Miss Manners (who is distraught that she cannot reply personally) atMissManners@unitedmedia.comor mail to United Media, 200 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016.

2007Judith Martin