Poor Table Manners are Unacceptable

“A man is embarrassed to be seen in smart places with a girl who holds a loaded fork in mid-air as she talks, keeps her arms crudely propped on the table.” — Above… One arm and both elbows on the table? Fork up in the air with food on it? Slouchy posture? She seems so blithely unaware that from his posture and his facial expression, he lost interest a while ago!

Poor Manners at Table to Be Deplored

You may not think your escort would notice a “little thing” like your table manners. But make a slip or two and watch his opinion of you go down! A man is embarrassed to be seen in smart places with a girl who holds a loaded fork in mid-air as she talks, keeps her arms crudely propped on the table.

But unless you're familiar with the rules, it’s hard to know what to do. Perhaps you wonder whether you should drink from your bouillon cup. Yes, you may. Use a spoon until the broth is cool enough. But never break crackers into your soup. Croutons or tiny bits of toast may be dropped in whole.

What to do when a hostess offers you a dish you don't care for? Don't speak of your dislike. Take a small quantity and, if necessary, leave it on your plate. With etiquette to guide you, even minor mishaps won’t upset your poise. Should you get a bone or fruit seed in your mouth, you inconspicuously drop it into your cupped hand. And, of course, you’ll never use your napkin as a screen.

Be perfectly sure of yourself when dining out. — From "Good Table Manners" in the Press-Telegram Home Service, 1940

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

Table Manners Must Be Practiced

Good table manners are important, not only that we may have the satisfaction of feeling certain that what we do is right, but that we may give no offense to others.

TABLE MANNERS

“For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that laws may be maintained.” - Machiavelli

THE gracious hostess will have the most perfect of table manners. It is not enough to know proper customs of table usage, but one must practice them consistently. It is always easy to distinguish the truly cultured person from the one whose manners are white-washed on, so to speak, in the way he behaves at all times. If his politenesses are brought out to be used only before company, they are sure to have an ill-fitting appearance, to creak in the hinges as it were. He is self- conscious, ill at ease, and not sufficiently sure of himself to forget himself. 

He has to keep looking on at his own actions to see if they are coming out all right. The person who knows correct behavior and practices it continually never has to think whether what he is doing is correct or not. He can go ahead and talk or laugh or listen, and all the time his fingers and hands and mouth will be behaving quite nicely, not giving offense to himself or any one else.

The best way to be sure of good manners is to learn them when you are quite young and then persist until they become a habit. Good table manners are important, not only that we may have the satisfaction of feeling certain that what we do is right, but that we may give no offense to others.

Eating may become an unpleasant affair, if one is careless about the way in which it is done. Sit beside a person for an hour who gobbles his soup, smacks his lips, chews noisily, sucks his teeth, wiggles in his chair, shoves the silver about, and see whether you feel that you have had a pleasant and enjoyable meal. The obvious answer is, don't do any of these things, but there are a good many other and lesser “don't's” with which it is well to be acquainted. — From “The Gracious Hostess” by Della Thompson Lutes, 1923

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

Bad Table Manners Hold You Back

Don’t, Dora, unless you want always to be known as a “One-Date Girl” - pile food on your fork, pat it down with your knife. Use a knife for cutting only; take food with your fork, a little at a time. 

Found Under “Home Service”

 

"Why am I always stuck with such ill-bred people?" wonder Prue, Dora and Jack. Better think less about others’ errors, you three; find out your own! Don't plunge after your falling spoon retriever-fashion, Jack, unless it's in some one's way. Wait for a fresh one. 

Don’t, Dora, unless you want always to be known as a “One-Date Girl” - pile food on your fork, pat it down with your knife. Use a knife for cutting only; take food with your fork, a little at a time. 

If you want to belong, Prue, don’t smack your salt cellar over your hostess’ well-seasoned food. Season so inconspicuously that no one thinks you’re criticizing your fare.

***Avoid telltale blunders, learn the fine points of table manners from our 32-page booklet. Etiquette of informal and formal dinners, restaurants, clubs, dining-cars. Be at ease in any circle. Send 10c for your copy of Good Table Manners to Santa Ana Journal, Home Service. Be sure to write plainly your name, address, and the name of booklet. – Santa Ana Journal, 1937

***Etiquipedia has included the initial added blurb from 1937, offering a booklet for 10 cents, simply for historical accuracy. This offer (and newspaper) is no longer available.

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

Edwardian Criterion of Table Manners

Above, “knife swallowing” as a parlor trick– Of course, the person who “swallows” his knife may at once be set down as hopeless. But the common consent that condemns him to the outside of the pale, emphasizes the importance of table etiquette in its less essential details. It is about as bad to abuse the fork, as it is to eat with the knife. In fact, the fork seems to be the real problem in table manners. The number of wrong ways of holding it make one marvel that more people do not hold it right by accident or habit, especially as the right way is by all odds, the most convenient as well as the most graceful.

“I have learned that the best way to study people is to watch them eat,” said a New York woman last week after asking to be directed to a middle class Kansas City cafe. This woman is writing about the West, and her point of view is exceedingly well taken. There is no other single text of average culture and refinement, or the lack of these qualities, so safe as the manners. of men and women in popular price cafes or hotels. You can find execrable manners in the highest priced places and faultless manners in cheap restaurants, but the place to get a representative average is in the middle-class place, where many of all classes assemble. It is far better than a formal occasion, for it shows the natural, off-guard deportment of men and women.

Aside from matters of morality, about the most serious mistake that can be made by a person pretending or seeking to be somebody, is to assume that the rules of etiquette are affectations to be ignored. They are absolutely essential to the good opinion of those whose good opinion is most to be valued. And the most vulnerable point of all is table manners. It is so remarkable as to be almost inexplicable that many people who show reasonable consideration and good taste in dress, manifest proper regard for the ordinary promptings of courtesy in the common walks of life, and otherwise reveal an innate or acquired respect for right deportment, “fall down” when they get to the table.

Of course, the person who “swallows” his knife may at once be set down as hopeless. But the common consent that condemns him to the outside of the pale, emphasizes the importance of table etiquette in its less essential details. It is about as bad to abuse the fork, as it is to eat with the knife. In fact, the fork seems to be the real problem in table manners. The number of wrong ways of holding it make one marvel that more people do not hold it right by accident or habit, especially as the right way is by all odds, the most convenient as well as the most graceful.

Hasty eating, noisy eating, stuffing the mouth with large particles of food, vulgar zest in the handling or mastication of food, tucking the napkin under the collar, taking tea or coffee from the saucer, utter disregard for dietary proprieties, the use of toothpicks in the presence of others, “sucking” the teeth and other violations of the common decencies of the table, all reveal the poor, the person without culture, even if that person be fashionably dressed. Make no mistake about the importance of table manners. The judgment based on them is severe. If it is sometimes unjust, it is also inexorable. – The Chico Record, 1907

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