Relaxing Etiquette Reveals Poor Form

The image above is a great example of what can happen when etiquette standards become relaxed. If one has an elbow on the table, it invariably leads to slouching, poor posture and to the casual observer, points out how graceful your dining companion looks beside you!  
What got into Emily Post’s head in 1938? When her best selling book was published in 1922, EmilyPost was 50 years old. I have often suspected that with advanced age, Emily slowly began to relax her standards. After all, this was the woman who served bar-b-que’d meats at an afternoon tea… “Reportedly, on Martha’s Vineyard, Emily Post was accused of ‘losing it’ when she served members of the Garden Club barbecued meats, rather than the anticipated tea sandwiches. When town members gossiped about her social gaffe, she responded that grilled meats seemed more festive for the occasion than “old-fashioned ladies food.’”

ONE BY ONE our most sacred. traditions and beliefs are destroyed. Now we read of Emily Post, high priestess of etiquette, eating dinner with her elbows on the table.

When we were kids we were taught that a table elbower was almost as low in the social plane as the shameless wretches who resorted to the unspeakable tooth-pick. 

The story said Emily's fellow diners at the Gourmet club, New York, were shocked at her sudden emancipation of the elbow though she tried to prepare them for the surprise to come by first knocking over a bowl of lingonberries.

The human elbow has never been regarded as one of nature's lovelier creations and it has always been our idea that the rule banning its display at meal times was more esthetic than scientific. 

Many an American grows to manhood without ever discovering why nature equipped him with a pair of elbows. And then he visits New York and takes a ride on the subway during rush hour.

Meanwhile, the elbow is in danger of disappearing completely in Italy and Germany. The Fascist-Nazi straight arm salute is gradually reducing it to the status of an unused hinge.

While we are grateful to Miss Post for the return of the American elbow from exile, her liberalism might have gone a bit further. Up to press time the napkin tucked under the chin has not been declared constitutional. – By William Ritt for the Imperial Valley Press, February 1938

 

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