Confusion Over Respiratory Etiquette

 

Disgusted? You are not alone! Why Ms. Millett doesn’t know about respiratory etiquette is a mystery to Etiquipedia. Any good etiquette book has good manners regarding coughs and sneezes.— “If ‘stay at home with a cold’ were a definite rule of etiquette instead of just a health rule, maybe more of us would pay attention to it. After all, more people break health rules than eat with their knives or otherwise defy the rules of etiquette.

It Shouldn't Happen!

If “stay at home with a cold” were a definite rule of etiquette instead of just a health rule, maybe more of us would pay attention to it. After all, more people break health rules than eat with their knives or otherwise defy the rules of etiquette. As it is now, a guest will come to a party and in between a cough and a sneeze, explain to anyone who cares to listen how she really should be home in bed, but she just didn't feel she could let her hostess down at the last minute. Other guests must accept her graciously, expose themselves to her germs and take home colds of their own as a memento of the party.

That wouldn't happen if the “cold spreader” was frowned upon socially, and “stay at home with a cold” was a real and definite rule of etiquette. After all, why shouldn't it be considered really bad manners to go to a party with a cold? The guest with a cold is certainly not a sparkling addition to any party. And she or he is a very real menace to the health, of the other guests. The guest with a cold who. says proudly, “I really should be at home in bed” is telling the truth. She SHOULD be. And there's probably not a soul in the room who doesn't wish that she was. — By Ruth Millett, 1948

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