1960’s Teen Etiquette and Dating

    

Does Your Dating Need Inflating?

Check Your Etiquette

Etiquette is a leading topic in the letters we get from teen- agers all over the country. So we've come up with an etiquette quiz one you can't flunk! If your answers are far afield or if you can't come to a decision despite nail-biting and hand-wringing, let the answers clue you in. Even if you don't rate an "A" (4 out of 5) the first time around, your new knowledge and improved self-confidence will surely boost your date rating in the future. See everybody's a winner!

1. The party is great and it's still going strong, even though it's after 12 and you promised your folks you'd be home by 12:30. You-

a. Pay no attention. You can always say your watch stopped.

B. Rush out without so much as a farewell.

C. Remind your date of the time; thank the host and explain that you don't want to abuse your curfew.

ANSWER: (C) If you've been told to be home by a certain time, let your date know this early in the evening. Then it's up to you to remind him. Most boys and friends will respect a girl who keeps a curfew. If they ridicule you, you wouldn't want to go around with them anyway.

2. You've been counting on going to the prom with Jane or Jim. Nothing materializes, so you ask Joan or Jack asks you and plans are all firmed up. Then your No. 1 choice lets you know he or she is available. You

A. Immediately break your previous date to be with your first choice.

B. Don't decide yet maybe one of them will come down with the measles.

C. Explain that you've already got a date, smile and say, "maybe next time."

ANSWER: (C) Date breaking is a rating breaker. You your self wouldn't want someone to beg off at the last minute would you?

3. You're at a party and you taste the punch. You realize it's spiked. You don't want to drink.

A. You pretend you don't notice

B. Quietly ask the host or hostess for a soft drink

C. Loudly call attention to the fact saying "What creep could have done this?"

ANSWER: (B) Odds are, before you reach the legal age for drinking, someone will offer you a cocktail or you'll encounter a situation like the one outlined. Best bet: ask for a soft drink, without resorting to unnecessary explanations. Making a big deal is always in bad taste. 

4. You've been invited to dinner. You're famished, the food is delicious and you want a second helping.

A. Wait for the host hostess to suggest seconds.

B. Ask for what's left.

C. Fill up on rolls. 

ANSWER (A) The hostess will always be flattered if you indicate you enjoy the food. However, unless you know more food is available better wait till the plate is passed a second time. Otherwise, the hostess may be more embarrassed than pleased.

5. He or she seemed to enjoy the date. Then he doesn't call again or you call the gal and she says she's busy. You

A. Stay home and mope.

B. Date yourself up three weekends in advance. You'll show them there are other fish in the sea.

C. Try again, then play it by ear. If you're a gal, call him and invite him to a party or the theater.

ANSWER: (C) all etiquette rules to the contrary. What have you got to lose? Staying home accomplishes nothing. Dating yourself up defeats the purpose.

RATING CHART

5-You should be writing this.

4-Still on the beam.

3-Sharpen up your technique.

2- Read up on etiquette

1-You're putting us on!

By Arleen Abrahams, in Youth Services, 1968

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

A Question of Fork Etiquette

“Excuse me, waiter, but why do well bred Americans permit themselves and their children to use the fork in the right hand? And, if no bread and butter plates are used, where should bread be laid during the meal?”

Watching the Forks

One of the questions that foreigners, especially English-bred people, most frequently ask regarding American manners is this: “Why do well bred Americans permit themselves and their children to use the fork in the right hand?” The fact is that in England, good table etiquette demands that the fork should be kept in the left hand. The knife is used, of course, in the right hand and it is regarded as bad form to shift the fork over to the right hand when the knife is not needed. 

Even in eating desserts the fork is kept in the left hand, frequently being used with a dessert spoon, which is held in the right hand. And children here, unless they are children of Europeans or of parents who affect English manners, are not warned against shifting the fork to the right hand for convenience. However, it is bad form from our point of view, as well as the English, to use the fork shovelwise, scooping up large mouthfuls of vegetables or meat upon it.

Well-bred persons take care how they hold the fork until it becomes second nature to hold it well. Even if the fork is small and your hand is large, avoid placing the handle in the palm of your hand as you would handle a small screw driver, as if your object were to get the best possible grip upon it. Do not hold on too far down the handle, but on the other hand, do not affect the over-dainty manner of holding it uncertainly very far up. 

When you have finished eating leave the fork on the side of the plate, sometimes downward.

When passing a plate for a second helping, place your knife and fork on the side of the plate, blade in or tines downward.

What Readers Ask...

“If no bread and butter plates are used, where should bread be laid during the meal?”

Usually on the plate, but if there is hardly room there is no harm in allowing a roll or fairly dry bread to rest on the table cloth beside the butter-pat.— The Sun, 1921

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

Perfecting One’s Social Etiquette

Never complain, never explain... If ever there was a Dame Grundy in period dramas, it was Violet, the Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey. 

———— ———— ————

 “When you are the person invited, do not gush over your acceptances or your regrets, but make your replies brief, and simple with complete avoidance of explanations as to why you can not—explanations of any sort now being considered extremely bad form.” 

— Meme source, Pinterest 

For School Girls of Dame Grundy

Perfecting one’s self in the rules of etiquette is a continuous occupation of a most interesting kind, for though the fundamental principles never change, there is a constant change in minor matters due to the fads and fancies of Madam Grundy. And not to keep abreast of the caprices of that autocratic lady, is to be behind the times, indeed.

Madam Grundy this season frowns upon the exhibition of excessivity in any form, and so it is not the fashion now to gush, though it wasn’t too long ago that gushing people were thought most attractive. But the proper tone of today is to have a manner which is cordial and sincere, but distinctly quiet, and this requires considerable drilling to attain.

When you invite your friends to do anything, show the sincerity of your desire to have them accept by a manner which is warm but not urgent. If they accept quietly show your pleasure, but if they decline or if they show an uncertainty, do not be insistent or try to tease them into doing what may be quite impossible. And, on the other hand, when you are the person invited, do not gush over your acceptances or your regrets, but make your replies brief, and simple with complete avoidance of explanations as to why you can not—explanations of any sort now being considered extremely bad form.

So much embarrassment would be eliminated if girls would strive unceasingly to acquire the tone of moderation now in vogue, for everyone has experienced the awkwardness of being gushingly urged to say, “yes” when one has said, “no,” and being expected to give reasons for declining when often the reasons were quite too personal to give. 

At the table, it is a marked evidence of good breeding not to urge food upon a guest. It is an unwritten law of hospitality that what is yours is your guest’s, and this pertains to all matters, but it transcends good taste when you are over solicitous about the things they do or do not eat. It is of course your duty as hostess to see that things are properly served to your guests, but having offered, make no comment on what they do. Some persons are small eaters, others are large, some like everything, and others like only a few things, but all are sensitive to remarks and object to having attention called to their idiosyncrasies.

If you are on intimate terms with your hostess and the occasion is an informal one, since it is quite proper for you to make comments of a personal character, such as praising the good things she has to eat, or the decorations for a party, or expressing your appreciation of the good time she has given you. But do not employ all the expletives in your vocabulary in doing so, for such, excessive effusion is artificial and condemned, as all artificiality is on the score of insincerty and bad taste.

On occasions of a formal character, it is not good form to make personal remarks of any sort in regard to the matters pertaining to your entertainment. Though there may be some particular dish at the table which is a favorite of yours, you should not comment on the fact, nor should you ask to have it passed to you a second time. At a dinner or at a luncheon the idea is that you are in the hands of your hostess, and your cue is to follow her lead, on no account asserting yourself or taking the initiative in any way. 

When things are arranged in courses, there is no question of a second serving, but when the meal is less formal it is customary to have everything passed twice except the soup, and it is quite proper for you to take things a second time they are offered, if you desire to do so. When you are hostess, never stop eating until every one of your guests has finished, for etiquette requires you to save your guest the embarrassment of making herself conspicuous by being the last. And when you arc the guest, do not thoughtlessly dally with your food in a dilatory fashion, for this is not only bad form, but selfish, as you cause not only your hostess, but the others to wait for you.— San Francisco Call, 1909

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