Mary Killen Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 21 May 2015

Plus: I worry that talking to my dog is making me eccentric

issue 23 May 2015

Q. How can I discipline inconsiderate people who do not reply properly to wedding invitations? I am being driven demented by replies on cards from people who have scrawled, for example, what looks like ‘Tom M’ and ‘James P’, which do not correspond to anything on my list. I refused to spoon-feed guests by enclosing a reply card but, even if I had done so, it would not have mitigated the problem of scrawlers and nickname users. How do these young people manage to hold down jobs if they cannot comprehend that the mother of the bride, to whom they are replying, might not know who they are?
— J.P., Stratford

A. Bear in mind that the scrawling reflects the fact that in a digital age many of these young people will have had no recent experience of handwriting. Moreover, the vanity and self-importance encouraged by social media leads to the assumption that everyone will be as interested in Tom M and James P as they are themselves and will therefore know who they are.

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