Etiquette and “Pour Prendre Congé”

The modern form of “Pour prendre congé”? Texting the question and receiving an answer via text. —  Well over a hundred years before texting was created, one had to leave a card with P.p.c. written on it, along with the date when one would return to let friends know their travel return date.

“Etiquette with all its littlenesses and niceties is founded upon a central idea of right and wrong.”—Dr. J. Brown

What Readers Ask— “Recently some neighbors of ours left to live in another state and they have now sent around cards marked P. P. C. with their, new address written at the lower part of the card. What is the significance of this?” 

The letters which should have been written “P.p.c.” stand for the French words “Pour prendre congé” —that is “to take leave.” These cards should have been sent around before your neighbors left. 

It is customary to send them when about to leave for a long journey or when changing one’s residence. For a new place, one should simply give the new address, engraved or written at the lower right hand corner. — By Mary Marshall Duffee, 1917

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

Etiquette, Poise and Queenliness

“The girl who attracts pleasant attention is the one who holds her head tilted upward, as though she were unafraid of the world and who looks at you fearlessly, but without boldness.” 

There seems to be a fad for walking and standing with the chin down. This is wrong, both from an artistic point and from a health one. The girl who attracts pleasant attention is the one who holds her head tilted upward, as though she were unafraid of the world and who looks at you fearlessly, but without boldness.

A fashionable girl of prominence here, never forgot that the well poised head meant queenliness, and probably her name will go down in history as one whose pose expressed this rare attribute. Even now, when other young women are affecting the artistic drooping pose, she continues to hold her imperious, litte head high in the air. - San Francisco Call, 1911

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

Place Card Etiquette and More

Use of Place Cards

I have never used place cards, and I think them a great convenience. Do you write the names of the guests and put them at the place you wish them to sit and are they supposed to carry them home with them as souvenirs? — “Ignorant” 

The place cards bear the names of the guests and are put at the places they are to occupy. They are usually laid on the napkins and are retained by the guests to be taken home If they wish. Where there are many to be seated or few these cards certainly make it easier for everyone.

The Matter of Calling Cards

I am at present visiting here in the city, but live in a small town. Quite a few people have called on me. In returning their calls do I leave my card, providing I find them at home?—A. L. 

When returning a first call it is quite the proper thing to leave your card as a matter of record, as well as to show you know the proper thing to, do. In the case of very intimate friends whom one calls upon frequently, it is not necessary to leave a card if the person is at home. –Madame Merrk, Sausalito News, 1913

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

Early 20th C. Etiquette Advice

Refreshments for Bridge Tea

I am going to have a friend to visit me for a week and wish to give a Bridge Tea in her honor. What refreshments can I serve besides sandwiches, tea and candy? Would an Ice be proper? I want to do the correct thing and will depsnd so much on your answer. —M. A.

I presume you wish to serve refreshments after the game. A fruit salad, served in grape-fruit shells, with cheese, crackers, a bit of bar-be-que in center of each; with it serve coffee. I would pass an ice or frappe during the middle of the afternoon, when one is apt to be thirsty. You could serve individual russe and hot chocolate or oyster cocktails and sardine sandwiches, with coffee.

“G.’s” Questions

When one is dining out and the host serves more than you really care for, is it a breach of etiquette to leave the plate quite well filled? I am nineteen years old and the eldest girl in the family. How should my visiting cards be engraved?—G. 

One is never compelled to eat more than is desired. It might be well to caution your host by saying, “That is quite sufficient, thank you.” Your card should be engraved simply, “Miss Brown.” To your other questions I must say I fear the reply is too late to be of benefit. I only have just so much space and only a limited number of letters can be answered each week.–Madame Merrk, Sausalito News, 1913

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

Edwardian Women's Etiquette

Tsk, tsk! Sprawling over the dinner table is neither graceful nor refined behavior for a young woman! She must be located in steerage. She certainly won't be found here in 1st Class.

The table manners of the twentieth century woman are being widely criticised and the worst thing said of them is this—they are not up to the standard of dress and cleverness exhibited by up-to-date femininity. It is true that women have made rapid strides in improvement, but there are those will declare that development has been one-sided. 

Women have learned to dress becomingly and take care of their bodies. They go about a good deal, which gives them self-possession, and read to give them a smattering that passes as smartness. But they are backward in real knowledge and lack the rudiments of politeness which every child used to learn. 

I have occasion to eat often in public places and there I meet instances of ill-breeding that are in marked contrast to the personal appearance of those responsible for them. It ought not to be necessary to be informed that is the first rule in eating and that small mouthfuls are better in more ways than that of comfort. 

Modern etiquette allows women to lean upon their elbows whenever they sit, but sprawling over the dinner table is neither graceful nor refined. The other night I saw a well-dressed woman powder her face with the addition of a tiny mirror before she left a public dining table. Another combed her front hair and others did things quite as baffling. 

It was at a fashionable restaurant where the bad manners were exhibited, and the young women were good-looking and well-dressed. Imagine their home life when they can be so careless in public! If mothers are careless—that is the first cause of bad breeding. They are too busy and too worried to consider the little things of life, they say, so girls grow up without any desire to remedy the maternal faults. 

Their only desire is to have pretty clothes. Generally they must earn them—and while as imitative as monkeys in matters pertaining to dress, they never attempt to copy the marks of good breeding which must come under their notice every day. 

It is so easy to teach little ones the simple manners of refined eating, and habits formed in youth remain so persistently with man or woman that it is unfair to deprive them of so valuable an equipment. One can never tell what piece of good fortune the future has in store, and being prepared to receive it saves both time and uneasiness. 

Good society is rather a stickler for forms, but the fine points of etiquette can easily be added to a bedrock of common rules, their manners should be as fine as our clothes, at least. — Betty Bradeen, Sacramento Union, 1911

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

Edwardian Etiquette Wisdom

“Yes, I toy with men's affections. I don't see how it is any of your concern!”

From “The Morning Chit-Chat”

The Very Pretty Girl, being in a bad mood, had been treating the Very Devoted Young Man with the most studied arrogance during the whole evening. She had ordered him hither and yon with almost insulting tyranny. She had refused an invitation of his with a shortness that was decidedly rude.

She had contradicted him flatly several times and laughed at him again and again with the unpleasant laughter that savors of mockery rather than friendly fun.

When he had finally taken his leave, the sandy haired, plain little girl who shared the Very Pretty Girl's apartment with her, cried reproachfully: "How could you treat him so? I think you were perfectly horrid to him."

The Very Pretty Girl sank down in the most comfortable chair—which she habitually arrogated to herself—and laughed with evident delight. "He seems to like it pretty well, doesn't he?" she responded. "While you were out in the kitchen he just begged to come again day after tomorrow, and I told him I thought that he was simply ridiculous, and that if he thought I had nothing else to do than sit around with him every evening, he was very much mistaken."

The sandy haired little girl looked at the Very Pretty Girl a moment, just about the way any one who knew the value of jewels would look if he saw a child throwing a very wonderful pearl or diamond into the water—only much more so—opened her mouth as if to say something and then shut it again and walked out into the kitchen and started to wash the chafing dish— a part of apartment bliss which the Very Pretty Girl most decidedly did not arrogate to herself.

Whereupon the Very Pretty Girl sat back in the most comfy chair and laughed aloud to herself, enjoying at the same time the silveriness of the laugh and the recollection of the Very Devoted Man's discomfiture.

Altogether, she felt that she had been most clever and brilliant in walking over a human being just because he was chained down by an infatuation into a position where she could walk upon him. You see she was forgetting several little facts. She was forgetting that no matter how willing the victim, walking on people is not good form.

She was forgetting that no matter how willing to endure rudeness and arrogance a foolish man may be, rudeness is just as much rudeness and just as ugly and undesirable a quality. She was forgetting that even if a man is willing to stand for being contradicted and laughed at, that does not make contradiction and mockery pretty things.

She was forgetting that no matter how generous and ready to give everything and receive almost nothing in return a man in love may be, it is just as selfish and soul killing for a woman to get in the habit of taking everything and making no proper return.

The Very Pretty Girl—and her hundreds and thousands of sisters, incidentally—who forget all these things, always think that their attitude is fascinating and attractive. Some day, perhaps, they will find out the contrary. And then for a time they will be very unhappy. But it will be a blessed unhappiness, for it will bring vastly greater and truer happiness in its train. — By Ruth Cameron, 1911

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