How do you do?” depending on the formality of the occasion, and whether you can count on the other person to understand that the answer to “How do you do?” is “How do you do?” even though that makes two questions in a row. (Etiquette opposes any declaration of being pleased to meet someone on the cynical grounds that it may not turn out to be a pleasure.) The

Miss Manners remembers who should be introduced to whom, but then she also remembers the difference between “who” and “whom.” The formula is simple: One introduces inferiors to their superiors. Thus, gentlemen are introduced to ladies, young people to old, unranked ones to those of exalted stature and your own relatives to everyone else.

When I’m introduced to a woman for the first time, I always say the same thing. I say, “Hi, I’m Jarod, and I think you’ll love my kids. You’d better, because you’re going to give birth to them.” This usually works, because after I say this I can immediately go back to being an introvert, as I’m left standing there all alone.

I think a great many marriages would be saved if people would behave toward one another with the same courtesy that they would extend to someone whom they really didn't know as well as a marriage necessarily implies. … It's not very easy to do, but it is surely easier to do than to haggle and nag and fight and bitch and yelp at one another as you hear a lot of married people doing … They seem to feel that the familiarity of affection permits anything, including insult.

Manners are the lubricating oil of an organization. It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects. Manners- simple things like saying 'please' and 'thank you' and knowing a person’s name or asking after her family enable two people to work together whether they like each other or not. Bright people, especially bright young people, often do not understand this. If analysis shows that someone’s brilliant work fails again and again as soon as cooperation from others is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy – that is, a lack of manners.

It's usually just awkward. It's not terribly romantic or steamy. Sometimes people's wives show up — "Hey, how you doing?"… I had a wedding scene with someone once, and the girlfriend showed up in a white dress...

Miss Manners corrects only upon request. Then she does it from a distance, with no names attached, and no personal relationship, however distant, between the corrector and the correctee. She does not search out errors like a policeman leaping out of a speed trap. When Miss Manners observes people behaving rudely, she behaves politely to them, and then goes home and snickers about them afterward.

I ask you about being happy the same way my high school friends ask me about being gay. 'So what do you people do exactly? I mean, how do you do it?

Little phrases such as “I’m sorry to trouble you,” “Would you be so kind as to — — ?” “Won’t you please?” “Would you mind?” “Thank you”-little courtesies like these oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life-and, incidentally, they are the hallmark of good breeding.

Little phrases such as “I’m sorry to trouble you,” “Would you be so kind as to — ?” “Won’t you please?” “Would you mind?” “Thank you” — little courtesies like these oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life — and, incidentally, they are the hallmark of good breeding.

My gay friends ask, Well are you gay or what?

"You could move.' — -"Dear Abby" responds to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood."

As if etiquette weren’t magnificently capable of being used to make others feel uncomfortable. All right. Miss Manners will give you an example, although you are spoiling her Queen Victoria mood: If you are rude to your ex-husband’s new wife at your daughter’s wedding, you will make her feel smug. Comfortable. If you are charming and polite, you will make her feel uncomfortable. Which do you want to do? On

Dear Miss Manners: What about Easter? I suppose you have etiquette rules that apply to Easter Day?
Gentle Reader: Certainly, and when the Day of Judgment comes, Miss Manners will have etiquette rules to apply to that, as well.