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| 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...”
- “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 ...
- “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!...
- “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..."
🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia
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