Online merchants who ask nosy questions like that on surveys at their Web sites have learned what usually honest visitors will do.

For instance, instead of recording the answer "41" to a nosy question like "How old are you?"

Mr. Martin's disdain of interviews, especially those including nosy questions about his childhood, is legend.

He also answers a television reporter's nosy question with "Now that's none of your business, sweetheart, is it?"

It was quite easy to suspend a comm if need be, so I often would do it to head off any nosy questions.

That was to stop him asking nosy questions, like how old you was.

"And this is for being a consultant on the issue, so I don't have to feel guilty about asking a lot of nosy questions."

Almost every interview contains at least a few nosy questions.

The training lies more in teaching them how to deal with people who resent nosy questions.

But she seems painfully shy, even after some years of nosy questions by Western reporters.