while eighteen-button gloves have three small pearl buttons each at the musketeer (which everyone knows is the opening at the wrist), there are, inde… - Judith Martin

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.

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

Humility is easy, although Miss Manners much admires brilliant humility. The usual variety, with its claims about feeling awed and hoping to be worthy, is tiresome. But it is extremely difficult to make others acquainted with how very much one has to be humble about. No, that’s not quite what Miss Manners meant to say. What is difficult is to establish gracefully that one has cause to be proud and haughty, before one can be contrastingly humble.