Miss Manners: Specialized forks stopped being relevant over 100 years ago

AdviceYou can send your questions to Miss Manners through her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com.Dear Miss Manners: My summer internship went great and I’ve been hired! But I’m afraid I’m going to ruin it because my boss takes new hires out to lunch at her exclusive club. I had to buy a tie, which is fine, but I just know I’ll use the wrong fork. Help!Gentle Reader: Only if you promise never again to use that meaningless cliche about the “wrong fork.”The age of specialized eating implements was over more than 100 years before you were born. Even in its prime, it affected only a small class, as aristocrats scorned it and the working class ignored it.If there are even two forks at your place setting, it would be surprising. A club, like a restaurant, does not know what you plan to order, so the staff cannot set the table for specific foods. If they could — and had, for example, a salad fork and a meat fork — all you would need to know is to pick them up from the outside in.But heaven forbid that Miss Manners should imply that table manners do not count. If you hunch over your plate, chew with your mouth open or otherwise disgust your boss, she could very well hold it against you, even if unintentionally. While it is doubtful that your first job will require you to entertain clients at expense account meals, your boss’s reaction to sloppy eating will be visceral.Table manners are not that hard, and you could learn them in a few minutes. But it would be a good idea not to order any unfamiliar dishes.Dear Miss Manners: I understand that black dresses are traditionally not supposed to be worn at a wedding. But what if there are female grooms-people at a black-tie affair?I’m planning to have my daughter and my three sisters stand with me at my wedding next year, and since I’m going to be in a tuxedo, I thought they might all wear black, as well.Gentle Reader: Congratulations on realizing that your wedding party should consist of those closest to you, regardless of gender.Most people still approach this by casting gender-specific roles. This comes of not understanding that the tradition dated from a time when brides and bridegrooms were not expected to have close ties to those of the opposite gender.But Miss Manners sees that you are still partially struck with that misunderstanding, in that you are considering dressing your groomswomen as honorary men.This brings her to another silly wedding custom: that of dressing female attendants alike, as if they formed a chorus line. Why not allow them to be the individuals for which you presumably value them, and choose their own dressy outfits?See? Miss Manners is not against sensible change. However, she still thinks that black dresses look too somber for a wedding. An increasing number of people now think they are too somber even for funerals, which are now styled as celebrations of life.But we won’t fight that fight right now. One step at a time, she supposes.Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.Judith Martin, who goes by the pen name of Miss Manners, is an author and columnist on etiquette authority. Martin graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in English. She began her career in writing as a...