A Wedding Delayed

My fiance and I were planning to have our wedding four months from now, but we recently decided to postpone it. As I start to let people know, I am getting bombarded with questions: Who called it off? Are you breaking up? When will one of you be moving out? We are still very much in love, but we just don’t want to do a traditional wedding right now. Do you have a witty reply to stop all the questions?

W.G. in Wellesley

Oh, the overrated power of the “witty reply.” Where do people get the idea that a clever comeback will dissolve all social awkwardness in its caustic embrace? Your friends and family deserve more than a Dorothy Parker-esque brushoff. They care, and they want to know what is going on in your life, if you’re happy about it or not, and what on earth they’re supposed to do to support you appropriately. And don’t say it’s none of their business; if it were none of their business, they wouldn’t have known about the wedding plans at all.

There are a number of ways you can handle this. You and your significant other could throw a party, at which you make the postponement announcement and answer any questions that come up. Or you could send a joint e-mail to your friends and family explaining the situation. Tell them what you feel comfortable telling them, thank them for their concern, and sign off with something like, “Please don’t ask us any more questions, because we haven’t got any more answers!” But whatever method you choose, do tell the people who love you what’s going on in your life.

Finally – and this isn’t what you asked, but I can’t resist – weddings aren’t mandatory, you know. If you want the marriage but not the wedding, you two can always run off and get married by a justice of the peace. Yes, family members may fuss at you, but if they’re the type to do that, they’d fuss at you throughout the months leading up to the wedding, anyway. By eloping, you’d get all the fussing over with in one go.

If former first lady Hillary Clinton becomes president, I believe her husband would be called first lord or first gentleman. They both sound awkward. What’s your take on the title from the standpoints of history, grammar, and etiquette?
N.F. in Haverhill
Goodness, you ask a lot. My take on the title from all of those standpoints would keep a dissertation committee busy for several years, so will you settle for a few random yet well-mulled thoughts? I hope so.
You’re right that the companion term of “lady” is “gentleman” or “lord,” but Bill Clinton wouldn’t be the first lord. Here we do not use titles of nobility, which is what “lord” unambiguously is. He’d be the first gentleman, as the husbands of female governors are sometimes called. Of course, Bill Clinton wouldn’t be any old husband of the first female president of the United States; he’d be a former president himself, too, which means that he would be referred to as either “the honorable Bill Clinton” or “President Clinton.”

Initially, I had planned to write that “first gentleman” sounds odd only because we haven’t had one yet. As I reflected on it, though, I realized that it sounds odd because it is odd. The entire concept of “first lady” depends upon the notion of a woman as a graceful adjunct to her husband’s career, with no ambition of her own save that of basking in reflected glory. This, needless to say, is an increasingly out-of-date idea, and when we imagine a man in the role, we realize how very antiquated it is. First ladies and gentlemen are likely to have their own careers these days and even notions of fun that extend beyond nodding and smiling at official events. For example, Todd Palin, the first gentleman of Alaska, has won the world’s longest snowmobile race (the Iron Dog) three times.
Of course, if we keep electing Clintons and Bushes to the presidency – suppose Hillary does win, and is then succeeded by Jeb four or eight years later? – we’re just going to have to refer to them all by their first names or middle initials to keep everyone straight.

Several neighbors and I stop and chat while walking our dogs. A new dog-walking neighbor whom we chat with is very nice – but she never picks up after her dog. We want her to feel welcome, but how do we tell her it’s unsanitary to leave dog poop all over the place without offending her?
M.K. in Belmont

Briskly. Hand her a bag (you do carry extra bags, don’t you?) and say, “Oh, people around here take picking up after their dogs seriously. It really helps our relations with the cops and with folks who don’t have dogs. I love Max’s hand-woven Guatemalan collar, by the way – where did you get it?” Focus on community norms, not the utter wrongness of her behavior, and she’ll feel less self-conscious.

My Word!
If you work in an office (especially a cube farm) and are suffering from a noisy cold, you may not be the only one who’s inconvenienced by it. Send around an e-mail to your colleagues letting them know that you appreciate their patience until the hacking and snortling subsides. And douse yourself conspicuously with Purell whenever someone comes by.Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology.