How Can You Muffle a Too-Loud Talker?

I recently made a new friend who is smart, funny, and generally effervescent. We hang out together a lot and have found we can talk about anything. There's only one problem: Sometimes her voice gets so loud that it actually hurts to listen to her. I've tried to tell her with body language (backing away slightly), but it hasn't worked. I don't think she even realizes how loud she is. I don't want this to compromise our friendship. What should I do?
K.E. /// Cambridge

Oh, dear! I must confess, K.E., that upon reading your letter, my immediate response was to flip madly through my address book to see if I have any friends in Cambridge with your initials. I don't, so I'm going to assume that you're not some new friend of mine who has chosen a clever, if sneaky, way to inform me about my volume-control problem.

Because I'm one of those loud talkers, too. For some of us, it goes with the territory of being effervescent. (You say your friend is only occasionally loud, so I'm assuming that she doesn't have a hearing problem and therefore think she's talking at a normal volume.) We don't mean to yell, it's just that we get so gosh-darned excited about the conversation, and all that energy has to spill out somewhere. And by that point, all the subtle signals in the world aren't going to register. My conversational partner could be donning earmuffs and fleeing across the room, and I'd still be chasing her down, hollering violent agreement at the top of my lungs.

And the reason I'm telling you all this is to clue you in that most loud talkers are aware of their little foible in a global sense. It's only when we're doing it that we forget about it. (I know this for a fact, because I've talked to other loud talkers, loudly and excitedly, about it.) So it's not something you should worry too much about bringing up. Sometime when your friend is not being unbearably loud, somehow switch the conversation to the topic of voices (actors' voices you like, the awful speech therapist your brother had as a kid, your own unrealized desire to become an auctioneer, whatever). Then casually drop into the conversation, "Your voice can get really loud sometime. Have you ever noticed that?" Saying "your voice" instead of "you" distances the question a bit and makes it less accusing. And she'll either be surprised, or she'll say, "Yes, I know. When I get excited, I just do that. It's awful." Either way, you can have a conversation about it. Just don't expect your discussion to have immediate effects -- loud talking is, as I and my long-suffering friends and family can attest, a very hard habit to break.

This summer, my husband and I will attend his family reunion. All but one of his eight cousins are married with two or three children. They are lovely, warm people, but I have a feeling there will be many questions about when we are having children. We are in our late 30s and struggling with whether we are ready. How can we respond to these questions in a way that kindly makes it clear it's something we don't want to discuss?
J.D. /// Melrose

Personal questions can often be awkward, but the ones that are hardest to deal with are always those to which you yourself do not know the answer. If your answer to "So, when are you having children?" were "When hell freezes over" or "With luck, nine months from last night," your only problem would be how to phrase such a sentiment politely. But as you and your husband are admittedly struggling over the answer yourselves, you're in a trickier position.

The best response is a simple, honest one. When asked when you plan to have children -- which, incidentally, is a question that should never be asked; ask if people plan to have children, not when -- tell the truth. "We'll have children when we're ready, and we're not sure when that will be." Don't elaborate. If pressed, say, "Oh, heavens, let's not turn the entire family reunion into a 'J.D. Reproductive Readiness Symposium' -- believe me, we've discussed it to death at home, and I'd much rather talk about something else!" Then turn the tables on your questioners and ask them how they knew when they were ready, if "ready" is even a relevant concept when discussing such an existential leap of faith as parenthood, and what surprised them most when they had their own children. And voila! The interrogation you had feared will turn into a fact-finding mission that might just help you and your husband make your decision.

My husband and I have been married for more than a year and in that time moved twice, and I recently discovered some written but unmailed thank you notes for wedding presents. I want to make sure everyone is thanked, and I think that late is better than never, but what should I do? Write new thank you notes?
J.F. /// Hingham

There's no need to write new notes, but do call the givers as soon as possible and let them know what happened. Put the original note in the mail -- perhaps with a copy of this column, even, as proof of your good intent. Then your friends will not only get their thank you notes but a good story out of it into the bargain.

MY WORD!

Doesn't it seem as though people used to inscribe books when they gave them as gifts, and now they don't? What a sad custom to lose. Gift books should always be inscribed -- even if it's just "To George from Martha" with the date. It makes the gift much more meaningful and so poignant when it's found in a used bookstore years later.

Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology.

GET EXPERT ADVICE E-mail your questions to missconduct@globe.com; fax to 617-929-8509; or mail to The Boston Globe Magazine /Miss Conduct, PO Box 55819, Boston, MA 02205-5819. Chat online with Miss Conduct the first and third Wednesdays of the month, noon to 1, at www.boston.com.