ArcaMax

Send your folks updates (include pictures), and assume that your mother will come around. She'll have to, because she now has a new baby granddaughter to love.

Dear Amy: I am in my 60s and retired from the financial services industry.

I have been afflicted with an arthritic knee for several years. My mother suffered with this, and I have two siblings who have had knee replacement surgery.

My gripe is, why do people have to be so nosy and blunt about my condition? I never complain about it.

I know that I will be a candidate for knee replacement surgery in the future. But I am so tired of people pointing out my problem and then proceeding to tell me they know the best orthopedic surgeon in the next city or town who can help me.

How would one of those people react if I pointed out a wart on their nose and said I know of an excellent plastic surgeon who could remove it, or someone's gray hair and recommended a salon to fix it?

I don't want to be nasty or rude to the queries, but the truth is that I'll have knee replacement surgery when I get damn good and ready to. Do you have any snappy comebacks?

-- Limpin' Louie

Dear Louie: You cannot compare a bad knee to gray hair or a wart. Those are cosmetic conditions. People see you in pain (you described your own mother as "suffering"), and they are responding to that by evangelizing about the life-changing miracle of successful orthopedic surgery.

A wiser and less-defensive person might welcome as much information as possible before limping into joint replacement surgery -- an experience you already acknowledge is inevitable. In the meantime, you might respond to these nosy intrusions by saying, "Thanks, but I'm working on it."

Dear Amy: You published a response from a woman who said she has taken on the nickname "Gypsy."

Amy, "Gypsy" is a racial slur for the Romani people and should definitely not be used as a nickname, regardless of how much this woman has traveled.

-- Disappointed

Dear Disappointed: Many readers responded as you have. I know this word is a slur, and I should not have published this response -- or at the very least let it stand, unchallenged. I sincerely apologize.

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(You can email Amy Dickinson at askamy@amydickinson.com or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.)