DEAR MISS MANNERS: One evening, quite late at night, I received a long, impassioned text from a stranger by mistake.
In it, he talked about having had a “wonderful few hours” with someone and hoped to see them again. He also revealed some personal insecurities about their time together that are, obviously, none of my business.
I’m aware that sometimes, to avoid the difficulties of being honest about how one feels, a person may give a phony phone number to someone they do not plan to see again. In this case, it seems I was the unlucky lotto number.
How can I handle this in a way that is polite and spares the sender any embarrassment? Is it best to reply to the text right away and tell them, “I’m sorry, but you have the wrong number,” as we do on the phone?
Or is the mortification I’d inflict on this person — since they’d know I’d read their private message — an ethical no-no, and it’s best just to delete the text and move on?
GENTLE READER: The eternal question is: Would you rather know the truth, or would you not? And the irony is that most people would rather know, but then chicken out when it is their turn to do the actual confrontation.
Miss Manners suggests that you simply tell the person that this was the wrong number. Let them draw their own conclusions as to why. There is always the chance that they typed it wrong. Even though we both know that it is unlikely.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a last name that my family has pronounced a particular way through the generations, and that most English speakers, looking at the name, pronounce in a more phonetic way.
If somebody asks me how I pronounce it, I tell them, but if somebody goes ahead and pronounces it the phonetic way, I never correct them — partly because it seems a little rude, but mainly because I don’t care.
An old friend, though, has learned that she’s been mispronouncing my name for several decades now. She told me I was rude not to correct her in the first place and spare her the embarrassment of “saying it wrong” all these years.
Should I preemptively correct people if I’m not bothered by what they’re saying?
GENTLE READER: Not caring is as good and refreshing a reason as Miss Manners has heard for not being rude.
Still, for the sake of your friendship, you might tell your friend, “It never bothered me and frankly I am so used to hearing it the way you say it that it didn’t occur to me to correct you. But I certainly never wanted to be rude or make you feel bad. Please forgive me.”
In the future, if it comes up otherwise in conversation, of course you may politely tell someone the proper pronunciation. To wit: “The English are so funny about their H’s. It’s actually properly pronounced Shufflebottom, not Shufflebotham, as it’s spelled.”
Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.