Saturday, July 12, 2025

Gilded Age Doings at Ducal House

The Figaro says that the Duchess of Marlborough (formerly Miss Consuelo Vanderbilt) has been led by the praise of injudicious friends to overrate her elocutionary gifts to such an extent that her “Victims” have nicknamed her the “Demon Reciter.” –
Though she eventually became an integral part of the British peerage, when the newly minted Duchess from the U.S. was skewered regularly in the press after first marrying the Duke of Marlborough. Above is a newspaper cartoon poking fun of the newly minted Duchess’s authenticity.


COUNTRY HOUSES ENTERTAIN
Mild Winter in London
Warm Nights Are Swelling the Spring Buds

Friday, July 11, 2025

Gilded Age Customs and Conscience

In the 1980 historical miniseries, Shogun, John Blackthorn, self-conciously bathing with Mariko, is the first English person to arrive in Japan and must find a way to survive in a culture which considers him to be a barbarian due to his European habits (eating the meat of birds he has killed, eating with one’s hands and rarely bathing.)– photo source Pinterest

Etiquette… Custom… Conscience


A Second Debut Article from 2018

It is said that “it is conscience that makes cowards of us all,” and there is much talk of the “whisperings of conscience,” the “wee small voice” and all that; but whence comes that voice? Is there an immutable principal of right and wrong placed somewhere in the mind that tells one of right and wrong? Or is it not custom - that to which we have been accustomed? We have mentioned before the people told of by Herodotus, who killed and ate a man when he arrived at a certain age, and he tells us that it was a great honor to be eaten by ones relatives and friends. 

Now if one of this race stayed away from such a feast, through pique, did not his conscience hurt him? Did he not feel like he had not done his whole duty? We kill the lamb that licks, in confidence, the salt from our hand and conscience does not rebel. The millionaire swears to false returns to the Assessor, because it is the custom for millionaires to commit perjury on such occasions, and his conscience does not trouble him in the least. He is satisfied that St. Peter will call it a “mere form” and pass him through the Pearly Gates.

In the same line comes customs of demeanor wherein modesty is concerned. That which is all right in one country is not in another. A writer in the New York Sun says that travelers in Japan tell of the unconcern with which a Japanese will take a bath in full publicity, and the custom has impressed foreigners as immodest. An Englishman who has been long in the country says there is really nothing in modest in the promiscuous bathing of men, women and children from a Japanese point of view. With them cleanliness is the object sought for, and the etiquette of the bathroom differs from the etiquette of the parlor.

With Europeans, he says, the attitude of waltzers is only permitted when the music is played. It is something like this with the Japanese bathers. When the necessary operation of washing or doing other work requires it, to strip becomes a duty. On the other hand, a Japanese woman would scorn to appear décolleté. To her eye our ballrooms are an astonishment, and the exposure of the person for display is incomprehensible. This writer thinks that the Japanese are not excelled by their Western Brethren in modesty. – Weekly Colusa Sun, 1892

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Thursday, July 10, 2025

Table Setting for a Formal Luncheon

A formal luncheon setting. Note in the diagram, the luncheon napkin is normally 13” x 13”, smaller than the typical 16” x 16” to  24” by 24” sized dinner napkins.  smaller than the dinner napkin. – “The napkin, which should match the table linen, is smaller than the dinner napkin and is folded like a handkerchief in folds.” 

  

STANDARD RULES OF ETIQUETTE

Question: How is the table set for a formal luncheon?
 
Answer: The table is set in the same manner as for a dinner. The place settings each have a plate, forks, knives and spoons. The napkin, which should match the table linen, is smaller than the dinner napkin and is folded like a handkerchief in folds. 
A feature which is usually omitted at dinners, but is a part of the luncheon service, is the bread and butter plate. The bread and butter plate is removed with the salt and pepper pots before the dessert. Service is like that for a dinner. Carving is done in the kitchen and all food is passed. Places are never left plateless, excepting after the salad course, when the table is crumbed and cleared for dessert. – The Valley Press, 1931


🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Saltwater Etiquette

Etiquette on the water is expected between ships. To be without any manners, and showing courtesy to others on the sea, captains and their crews would find themselves as welcome as drivers on the worlds’ highways would be without exhibiting courtesy and manners behind the wheel. To use the word “unwelcome” would be an understatement!

Punctiliousness as Seen Between Ships, 

Big and Little, at Sea

How the Master of an Indian Liner and the Yankee Skipper of a “Cordwood Coaster” Exchanged Greetings

The Atlantic ocean is, streaked from one side to the other with the long, black, trailing smoke plumes of the big, rushing “record breakers” and “ocean greyhounds,” and few are left of the gallant old white winged craft that carried the flag and the fame of the nation to every part of the world, save some scattering “oil sleds” which the sailors, or to speak more correctly, the deckhands on the liners contemptuously refer to as “wind jammers.” 

Here and there, however, will be seen an occasional East Indian semi-clipper, either bound out to China or the East Indies, loaded with case oil, or coming home with a cargo of hemp, jute, linseed, rattan or some other of the fragrant and valuable products of the gorgeous east. But through all the changes in the size and rig of vessels, through all the vicissitudes of a life on the ocean wave, the captain of a ship, be it big or little, is, as a rule, as punctilious in the matter of etiquette as a Spanish grandee. And the etiquette of the sea is a wonderful thing. 

A hail from a little 75-ton “fore and after” will be answered with as much regard for the proprieties by the East India ship of 2,000 tons as it would be by one of its own size, and when the big ship has been run through storm and fog by “dumb luck and dead reckoning,” the appearance of the little one is hailed with delight, as affording a means of rectifying possible errors in reckoning. 

An instance of this kind occurred off Cape Cod a short time ago, when the captain of a ship with a valuable cargo and a crew of twenty-five men, as the fog lifted about noon of the seventh consecutive day without an observation, saw almost under his bows a little “cordwood coaster” creeping along under mainsail and jib, with her skipper at the wheel and her crew (one man) vigorously hauling away at the jib sheet. “Ship ahoy!” roared the skipper.

Back from the deck way above him came the answering call, “Ahoy there.”

“Where ye from?” was the next question. “Calcutta, bound for Boston,” was the reply.

“What's yer cargo?”

“Linseed, spice and jute butts.”

“How long ye bin out?”

“One hundred and sixty days,”

“Gosh!” said the skipper, and then came the chance of the big ship’s captain.

“Schooner ahoy!” came down from the deck of the “lime juicer.”

“Ahoy there,” went back the answer “What's your longitude?”

The skipper knew where he was and the master of the Calcutta ship was uncertain. So when the answer was given he was much relieved, for it showed that he was nearer home than he had reckoned. But he was going to have his talk out any way, and although the little fellow had his jib to windward he roared out:

“Where you from?”

“Gloucester, bound for New Bedford.”

“What’s your cargo?”

“Rocks and bilge water mostly.” “How long you been out?”

The skipper was stung by the sarcasm of the question, and with a look of scorn at the big ship bellowed out: “Bin out all night, by thunder, and I wish I hadn't. Draw away your jib!” and the sheet block went over to the lee rail with a bang, the sail filled, and the last the Indian man heard of the schooner was the skipper’s shout from the stern of his boat, “Ye think ye’re darn smart, don't ye, jest cause ye’re big!” -New York Tribune, 1894


🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Emily Post and Social Umpires

One of the better known writers on manners, with her first book of etiquette published in 1922, is Emily Post. Though she died in 1960, her extended family (most notably her late-granddaughter in-law, Elizabeth Post) has successfully continued on with her legacy of  nearly a century of etiquette books, news columns and social media contributions. – Above, “Emily Post” by Miguel Covarrubias for Vanity Fair, December 1933 
– Image source, Pinterest 

Chaperon Snubbed by Emily Post, Social ‘Umpire’ 

Emily Post did a bit of snubbing in Santa Ana today. She turned up her nose at chaperons for girls. In her newest book on etiquette, the ultra-ultra authority on polite behavior not only woke up to the fact that the chaperon has long been in moth balls, but also became aware that girls sometimes do a little stalking of men.

Miss Post gave grudging approval to this technique of pursuit, but warned that girls must never, never run.

With the fall social season opening, with high school and junior college festivities about to begin, girls and their mothers today were busy getting “posted” on the revised rules for the game.

VIEWS APPLAUDED

Local vendors have just received their first stacks of Mrs. Post’s modernized edition, and Santa Ana matrons have begun flocking in to get their copies.

Most social leaders here were heartily in sympathy with the liberalized trend in etiquette. A few thought Emily Post should be the last outpost of conservatism, but most of the new departments in the 700-page volume were well received.

Here are some of the newer Emilypostisms:
  • “The young girl who is ‘the success of today’ depends far more upon her actual talents and disposition than in the day when sex-appeal was an ever menacing fact instead of a commonplace phrase...”
HOLDING HANDS?
  • “It is the present fashion for the younger generation to walk side by side, never arm in arm...
  • “In no detail of etiquette has the modern generation effected so marked a change as in its increasing freedom from the perpetual presence of a chaperon. The chaperon is gone. Protection has disappeared, much as have the veils which covered the faces of the women in the East...
  • “When champagne is served at a mixed party, men always should be offered the alternative of a choice of whiskies.. ‘Highball’ is a social tabu. One says Scotch and soda or whisky and soda ...
SPEED LIMIT
  • “A girl who goes into an office because she thinks herself pretty and hopes to rise quickly because of her physical charm has clerkship and chorus-work mixed. Sex is one thing that has no place in business…
  • “The ideal business woman is accurate, orderly, quick and impersonal…
  • “How far may a girl run after a man? Catlike, she may do a little stalking! But ‘run’? Not a step. The freedom of today allows her to meet him half way, but the girl who runs, runs after a man who runs faster!...
DUNKING?
  • “Ethically the only chaperon is the young girl’s own sense of dignity and pride... 
  • “In going to tea in a college man's room, it would not be out of the way for two or three properly behaved young girls to go together, with no older chaperon…
  • “Elbows on the table are all right in a restaurant. because of the necessity for leaning forward when talking with a companion across the table…
  • “A baked potato may be eaten by breaking it in half, scooping the inside onto the the plate with a fork and mixing butter, salt and pepper in it with a fork, but never with a knife...
  • “All juicy or 'gooey' fruits or cakes are best eaten with a fork, but in most cases it is a matter of dexterity..."
Miss Post did not discuss the subject of drinking. – Santa Ana Journal, 1937


🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Monday, July 7, 2025

Etiquette Went Fishing

Whether fishing for sport or fishing for one’s food, good etiquette is a requirement. Follow all posted rules and unposted rules, if you discover any apply, if you wish to be welcome back. Etiquette is big component of good sportsmanship!

       

Etiquette Rule of the Sea:
Old Whaling Law Applied to a Twice Caught Cod


The etiquette which is observed among the fishermen that journey to the fishing banks was discovered by an amateur angler on his first trip. The amateur hooked a codfish, but his line parted just as the fish was above the water. Back fell the cod-fish. carrying with him two sinkers and the hook.

Twenty minutes later another angler eried out that he had captured a cod with two sinkers and a hook. The amateur went up to the angler, who appeared to be an old salt, and asked for his hook and sinkers, which had his name stamped on them. He was surprised when the old salt told him to take the fish also.

According to the rules generally followed on the fishing boats, the second angler was entitled to the fish, but the hooks and sinkers should be returned to their owner. The old angler explained why he wanted to give up the fish.

It seems that he had followed the sea a great part of his life. When a young man he was a whaler, and, according to whaling law, a dead whale belongs to the ship whose name appears on the harpoon that killed it. Therefore the old salt figured that the amateur owned the codfish he had taken. –New York Sun, 1909


🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Sunday, July 6, 2025

Etiquette: Table Crumbing to Dessert

After the salad course, the table is crumbed with a folded napkin on to a china plate, and the dessert service is placed before the guest — the glass bowl and plate on the larger plate with a small, lace or embroidered doily between. – Above, crumbing the table using a table crumbed brush and pan set. These can be used for a more formal look and numerous antique versions can be found for purchase online.

Crumbing the Table Serving Dessert

Dessert, as interpreted by the American hostess, is anything sweet that comes at the end of the meal -puddings, pies, ice-cream. Pie is never served at a formal dinner. Ice-cream, in one form or another, is almost the universal dessert. The dessert spoon is twice the size of a teaspoon, and with the fork which matches it in design, is laid either beside the dessert or upon it.

The present-day correct dessert service consists of a glass or china plate, deeper and about the size of a tea plate, a smaller glass plate and a finger bowl to match.

After the salad course, the table is crumbed with a folded napkin on to a china plate, and the dessert service is placed before the guest — the glass bowl and plate on the larger plate with a small, lace or embroidered doily between. The guest removes the finger bowl and doily to the cloth, and takes his ice-cream on the glass plate. This is then removed and the fruit is eaten from the larger plate. The fingers are dipped in the finger bowl and wiped on the napkin. Very lovely dessert sets, the three pieces matching, may be had in delicately colored glass.

Dessert may, however, be served in various ways, according to the pleasure of the hostess. It may be served “from the side,” where the plate would be set before the guest with the dessert silver on it. Or it may be served by the hostess at the table which would be the English form, the waitress taking the plates from the hostess and placing them before the guest - always from the left. In this case the silver would be laid on the cloth.

A fruit knife must be laid if fruit is to be served. At many really formal dinners the fruit course is omitted, since few care for both the sweet dessert and fruit. – From “The Gracious Hostess” by Della Thompson Lutes, 1923


🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Saturday, July 5, 2025

Etiquette and Tardy Dinner Guests

If you are going to be more than 10 minutes late to a dinner, or any meal for that matter, the polite thing to do is to call ahead and let your host or hostess know. It is the height of rudeness to arrive late without notifying someone when on is fully able to do so. Arriving more than 10 minutes early can also be a problem for hosts and hostesses. To be most polite, try to be on time… no earlier and no later.



The Guest Who is Late for Dinner

If a guest at the last moment is unable to attend, the hostess or her secretary or the butler should call up some intimate friend and ask him to fill in. Instead of being offended at being invited at the last minute, one should be complimented at being considered on sufficiently intimate terms to be asked. And one should never refuse such a request if it is possible to accede.

Twenty minutes past the hour set for dinner is the longest a hostess need wait for delinquent guests. It is almost unpardonable for a guest to be late for a dinner party, but if one unavoidably is, the hostess must receive his apologies amiably, shaking hands as she sits at table, and not rising unless the guest is a woman.

Unless the guest asks that the service may begin at the point reached when he enters which the considerate guest will do he is served from the first as were the others. The considerate guest, however, will not be late for dinner if it is possible to be on time. To keep a dinner waiting is not only ruination to the dinner, but irritating to one’s hostess and inconsiderate of other guests. 

If one can see that ten, fifteen or twenty minutes will elapse before he can get to his destination, he should telephone and ask that dinner be not kept waiting. Habitually to stroll in ten or fifteen minutes after the hour named is a pretty sure way to get one's name crossed off a dinner list.—The Gracious Hostess, by Della Thompson Lutes, 1923

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia