2 Etiquette Authors Weigh in on Chips

Originally called “Saratoga Chips,” potato chips had a special scoop or server, designed especially to serve them. — Above, a “Hope” pattern Saratoga Chip server, with a gilded, pierced bowl, by Mount Vernon Silver, circa 1899

Two Different Views on Potato Chips by 2 Legendary Etiquette Authorities… Who do you agree with?

Dear Mrs. Post: I've always thought potato chips could be taken with the fingers rather than with a serving spoon because, as everyone well knows, a spoon is really no good unless you lay a hand over it.

Answer: A “hand over?” Gracious, no! The right rule is just as easy. You shove the spoon under the potato chips and hold them on with the fork. It's not hard to do — not at all! — Emily Post

🍴🥄🍴🥄🍴🥄 🍴🥄 🍴🥄🍴🥄🍴🥄

Dear Miss Manners: What is the proper way to eat potato chips?

Gentle Reader: With a knife and fork. A fruit knife and an oyster fork, to be specific. Good heavens, what is the world coming to? Miss Manners does not mind explaining the finer points of gracious living, but she feels that anyone without the sense to pick up a potato chip and stuff it in their face should probably not be running around loose on the streets. — Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners

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

A 1940’s Stork Shower Suggestion

For a woman who married and moved far away, a group of her friends have asked if it would be possible to give her a long-distance stork shower party.

MRS. POST ENDORSES LONG-DISTANCE SHOWER

FOR a woman who married and moved far away, a group of her friends have asked if it would be possible to give her a long-distance stork shower party. “All of us would like to send her new baby presents, all at one time, and since much of the fun of a shower is getting together and seeing the packages opened do you think it would be all right if we have a party among ourselves and then wrap the gifts in matching wrappings and send them on in one big box to our guest-of-honor?”

In answer to this, let me say not only may you do this, but I think it one of the most appealing ideas ever thought of. In fact, I'd like to suggest that you have some snapshots taken of all of you looking at the things, or perhaps of each of you holding up your own gift, and then enclose the picture (or a collection of pictures) in the box of packages. I like the idea so much, I am sorry that I don't know your guest of honor: that I can't be at the party, and that I can't see her when she opens the presents! Really. I think it is a lovely idea. — Emily Post, 1941

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

Service Plate Etiquette

Image from the book, “Reaching for the Right Fork”

Removing Service Plate is Simpler and Quicker

 

ACCORDING to correct (formal) service, the service plate is removed with either fruit-cocktail glass, or soup plate, and exchanged for a clean plate known as an “exchange plate,” because this in turn should be exchanged for any plate with food on it. But since a kitchen-served meat and vegetables is not admitted at a formally-served dinner, an exchange plate would seem strangely out of place. Therefore, the answer is to do what is most expedient. This probably would be to remove service plates and whatever may be on them, (one double stack in each hand), and bring in the filled ones (one in each hand). 

Above, another look at silver service plates. — Photo of page from an early 1900 book on proper place settings, by Wallace Silvermiths.

This answer is to the question: “When the main course of a meal is served on plates in the kitchen and brought in by the maid (which is often done these days in this part of the country) should the service plate be removed at the time that the fruit cocktail or soup is removed, or should the place plates be left standing and only the first course removed, and the place plates be lifted as each hot plate with the main course is put down?”

As I already have said, it would seem simpler as well as quicker to remove service plate and whatever is on it and leave the place bare until the already filled, hot plates are put down. This is a “practical” service suggestion, in contrast to that which is “formally” correct." — Emily Post, 1941

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

Who Pours at Tea?

More etiquette for pouring at tea: If the hostess for a formal tea is pouring, she need not rise when guests come by the table to bid her farewell. She bows and perhaps offers her hand. If the hostess is not tied to the tea table with duties, but has friends pouring for her, then she should be sought out by departing guests who thank her for her hospitality.

Let Members Pour at Women's Club Tea

DEAR Mrs. Post: Our women's club is giving a large tea for approximately a hundred and fifty guests. Would you suggest that it is better at a tea of this size to let the hotel do all the serving, or do you think it more friendly to have members of the committee preside at the tea table?

Answer: At a tea for as many as fifty the details of serving are more often than not taken care of by the caterers, or by the servants in a private house. However, in your case, if sufficient members of the committee take turns at pouring, it should not be too tiring for any one of them, and there is no question that club hostesses at the tea table would create a more friendly atmosphere. In any case, all the other details of replacing used cups and saucers with fresh ones and replenishing sandwiches and cakes. and passing them will be taken care of by the hotel.– by Emily Post, 1937

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

Emily Post and Social Umpires

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...”

HOLDING HANDS?

• “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 ...

SPEED LIMIT

• “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!...

DUNKING?

• “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..."

Miss Post did not discuss the subject of drinking. – Santa Ana Journal, 1937

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

A Book Browser’s Take on Emily Post

The modern ideal of hospitality… from the 1937 printing of Emily Post’s Blue Book of Etiquette – Friendliness, rather than formality, is expressed in every detail of this enchanting picture.

“The Browser” Talks of Books

LAUGH AT Mrs. Emily Post and her etiquette book if you want, but the Browser from now on is on her side of the car tracks. He has just given an hour of his invaluable time to hopping and skipping around in her massive tome, “The Blue Book of Social Usage,” and he is a changed man. If he ever sniffed at Mrs. Post he was a blundering idiot and did not know that the basis of her philosophy of etiquette is always tact, taste, consideration, convenience and courtesy Her “good form” is not conspicuous waste of gesture but a streamlined remodeling of conduct to suit the requirements of 1937. And the Browser approves, and he knows very few members of the human species who would not profit from rambling through the 877 pages of Mrs. Post's “Etiquette.”

The Browser doesn't go to opera, so he isn't interested in knowing what to do with an opera hat that he doesn't own. Neither does he dance, so he skips the chapter on dancing. He was raised among artichokes, so her little paragraph on how to eat them is wasted on him. But many of the other tips and commands she gives would be very useful to him, and they would keep other people from recognizing him for the savage that he essentially is.

She’s no fuss budget. Mrs. Post tells you not to put your elbows on the table in a private home, but at a small table in a restaurant she does not forbid it. She does not tell young women they mustn’t smoke; but she does say that it is not yet good form for them to smoke on the street. She gives advice on office manners; she teaches the young man how to avoid boorishness; she supplies tips on how to keep the conversational ball rolling, and after turning over the pages of her book the Browser understands why 25 large printings of it have been sold since 1922. No snob gets any comfort out of Emily Post. – By Marshall Marlin, 1937

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

Etiquette at the Library in 1949

Conservative to a degree, Emily Post has been in-part replaced, or at least modernized, by newer authorities such as Margery Wilson whose “The New Etiquette” is called the modern code of social behavior. She covers all the usual items plus servants, entertaining– how to eat and how to serve wines, traveling and tips— always a troublesome point, and even a bit on children’s etiquette. 

A new book on showers reminds me of the frequent occasions when one or another of you come in to consult an etiquette book. The shower isn't the kind that makes your garden grow, but the kind you give the bride-to-be, or the mother-in-waiting. The book is

“Shower Parties for All Occasions” by Helen Webster, and there are showers for engagement, anniversary, birthday, baby, or going-away. The parties are described complete with decorations, games, menus and appropriate presents. It's really not such a chore to give a shower with this book at hand.

Speaking of etiquette, there are many times when you may wish to check up on the correct way to accept a formal wedding invitation, or the proper form of address for a widow. Perhaps you have to co-hostess a tea or be in the receiving line at a big function. These are details which few of us keep in mind all the time, but want to be sure of at the appropriate moment.

Emily Post we have had with us ever since 1922 when she published her first “Etiquette.” She believes that “good manners are less a matter of rules than a sensitive awareness of the needs of others.”

Conservative to a degree, Mrs. Post has been in-part replaced, or at least modernized, by newer authorities such as Margery Wilson whose “The New Etiquette” is called the modern code of social behavior. She covers all the usual items plus servants, entertaining– how to eat and how to serve wines, traveling and tips— always a troublesome point, and even a bit on children's etiquette. 

There are also chapters on official etiquette (when next you are called to Washington), business and club etiquette and necessary observances in sports such as golf and tennis. Her point of view is casual and relaxed in the modern manner.

For special problems we have "Vogue's Book of Brides" which carries the engaged girl right up to the altar with all details of dress, presents, photographs and decorations.

The young of the species sometimes amaze us with their consistent disregard of what we consider rudimentary good manners. If you have such problems, I recommend Stevens’ “The Correct Thing,” a guide book of etiquette for young men, and “Behave Yourself!” etiquette for American youth by Betty Allen and Mitchell Briggs. – By Elaine Howe for Washington Township Newsletter, 1949

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

Emily Post on Finger Bowl Doilies

Originally, the word “doily” referred to as small napkin or decorative “piece of linen.” The word doily, also originally “doyley” was first used in 1711. Over the decades, doily has come to mean a small, lacy, decorative mat or crocheted piece of lace for finger bowls or desserts to be placed on. – “ Finger-bowls and doylies are brought in on the dessert-plates. Each person at once removes the bowl and doyley to make ready for whatever is to be put on the plate.” – From the Etiquette of Gilded Age Dinners and Service

Don't Dirty a Doily

Dear Mrs. Post: When the finger bowl is brought to the table on the dessert plate, on which is a lace doily, how does one remove the finger bowl to the table, and where is it put? Is the doily removed with it, or is dessert put on the doily?

Answer: The doily should be lifted off with the finger bowl and both put down at your place wherever there is room. On no account put anything eatable on top of a lace doily.

Emily Post, in “Good Taste Today,” 1937 

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

Formal Dinner Etiquette of 1952

A formal dinner setting — From “Your Reference Book of Silver Etiquette” by Emily Post for the Home Decorators Consultants, 1952

The truly formal dinner, the most ceremonious social function that exists, is rarely given by the American hostess of today.In fact, it is safe to assume that the formal dinner is now given only on State occasions in the few remaining great houses of this present day.

All other dinner parties, including the buffet dinner, may, therefore, be classed as informal dinners, regardless of how elaborate they may be. Too few of us have the houses, the servants, or the purses necessary to permit us to follow every last, exacting rule required by the formal dinner. For example: 

At the formal dinner butter is never served; rolls are placed on the tablecloth— never on a bread and butter plate; there must be a footman at least for every four chairs at the table.

However, all the correct rules governing the dinners originate with the formal pattern which is modified to suit the possibilities of each hostess. She may give her dinner parties whatever degree of formality she wishes, or finds practical. — From the Home Decorators Consultants, 1952

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

Emily’s “Good Taste” #3

A 1940 letter from Emily Post to a friend. This letter is part of a group of letters from Emily Post to a friend in the 1930’s and 1940’s. This group of letters was acquired for the Etiquipedia Etiquette Museum, scheduled to be opened within the coming 5 years.

Good Taste Today

Part 3

Dear Mrs. Post: After we were married two weeks ago, my husband was presented with a radio by his fellow office workers. They gave it to him at the office and he brought it home. Now he thinks that I should write a note to his boss, thanking every one, whereas I feel that they did not intend this to be a wedding present to me personally. If they had they would have sent the radio to our house, wouldn't they? 

Answer: I think you are perfectly right that it was a present to him individually and that you should not bo expected to thank them. In fact, I think If you wrote a note now it would be like getting up to take a bow to an audience who has applauded your husband's speech. 

⚜️

Dear Mrs. Post: Should people who come to my beauty shop be properly spoken of as customers, clients, patrons or what? And should ladies who come regularly to my shop and whose names I naturally know very well be called Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Brown, or Madam? 

Answer: You speak of your "customers" and you call those whom you know personally by name (i. e., Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Brown) and you call strangers "Madam." – By Emily Post in the San Bernardino Sun, 1939                

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

Emily Post- “Good Taste Today,” 1939

A typed letter from Emily Post to a friend. This letter is part of a group of letters from Emily Post to a friend in the 1930’s and 1940’s. This group of letters was acquired for the Etiquipedia Etiquette Museum, scheduled to be opened within the coming 5 years.– Property of the Etiquipedia private library

Good Taste Today

Part 2

Dear Mrs. Post: What would be your suggestion for clothes to wear at a club breakfast, which begins at noon and continues with an all-afternoon program? 

Answer: Street-length afternoon dresses would be proper, and hats. 

⚜️

Dear Mrs. Post: My daughter is being graduated this year from high school and she and I had thought it would be nice for me to invite her teachers to tea some day after school. I have never met any of the teachers but I hardly think, under the circumstances, that fact would matter. My mother seems to feel that this gesture would be all right in all the many more friendly smaller communities but that in this big city it would be looked upon by them as presumptuous rather than courteous. We are naturally very much disappointed at mother's criticism of our plan and wondered if she is right about this. 

Answer: To invite teachers who have shown no especial friendliness to your daughter and for whom she has had no especial liking, might seem to them surprising and possibly questionable. But any teachers she has always liked very much, and who would naturally be the ones she would like you to meet, will, I am sure, be delighted to come. She fact that you do not know them personally does not affect the propriety of your writing a note to each one saying that before Mary leaves school it would give you so much pleasure to meet the teachers of whom she has been especially fond, and inviting her to take tea with Mary and you on Friday, at half past four? – By Emily Post in the San Bernardino Sun, 1939                

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

Good Taste from Emily Post, Pt 1

Five things you probably didn’t know about Emily Post

Good Taste Today 

Part 1

Dear Mrs. Post: If the host carves and there is no maid at all, how should the vegetables and potatoes be served? Is it bad form to pass serving dishes from one to the other around the table.

Answer: If you help yourself there is, of course, the advantage of taking as much, or as little, as you want. However, there is also the question of hot serving dishes which, in fingers sensitive to heat, have been known to bo dropped! Even if the host serves the vegetables and potatoes as well as the roast, the plates can be filled according to each one's direction, such as: "May I have a rare slice of meat and just one potato, please?" This plan seems to me the simplest. But the only answer is to do what seems to you most practical. 

Dear Miss. Post: I went to a dinner some time ago where there was a guest of honor. After I had found my place at table I sat down, as I always have done. But much to my embarrassment the other ladies stood at their places and waited until the hostess asked them to be seated. I must admit that it took me several courses to regain my composure. The ancient advice of "When in Rome . . ." did not help in this situation, as I had never dined with this particular group of people. They must have thought me extremely rude, and perhaps I was, but I had never run into this display of politeness to the guest of honor. Will you write something about it? 

Answer: As you have said, many communities have customs of their own. Personally I have never heard of this procedure except in boarding schools. According to conventional usage every lady sits down as soon as she is told where to sit, or as soon as she finds her place card. The gentlemen stand at their places until the ladies are seated. In other words, what you did was (according to etiquette) entirely right. – By Emily Post in the San Bernardino Sun, 1939                

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

Early 20th C. Smoking Etiquette

Was this advice from 1864 the impetus for smoking jackets? “A host who asks you to smoke, will generally offer you an old coat for the purpose.” —The Addams Family character “Gomez Addams’” in his smoking jacket. -Photo source, Pinterest

A gentleman may smoke in the presence of ladies—especially in the presence of those who smoke themselves—but a gentleman should not smoke under the following circumstances:

When walking on the street with a lady.

When lifting his hat or bowing.

In a room, an office, or an elevator, when a lady enters.

In any short conversation where he is standing near, or talking with a lady.

If he is seated himself for a conversation with a lady on a veranda, in an hotel, in a private house, anywhere where “smoking is permitted,” he first asks, “Do you mind if I smoke?” And if she replies, “Not at all” or “Do, by all means,” it is then proper for him to do so. He should, however, take his cigar, pipe, or cigarette, out of his mouth while he is speaking. One who is very adroit can say a word or two without an unpleasant grimace, but one should not talk with one's mouth either full of food or barricaded with tobacco.

In the country, a gentleman may walk with a lady and smoke at the same time— especially a pipe or cigarette. Why a cigar is less admissible is hard to determine, unless a pipe somehow belongs to the country. A gentleman in golf or country clothes with a pipe in his mouth and a dog at his heels suggests a picture fitting to the scene; while a cigar seems as out of place as a cutaway coat. A pipe on the street in a city, on the other hand, is less appropriate than a cigar in the country. In any event he will, of course, ask his companion's permission to smoke.– From Emily Post's 1922, “Etiquette”

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

Etiquette’s Importance in a Democracy

For hundreds of years, books of etiquette have been big sellers. This is especially true during “etiquette eras” — periods in time when etiquette lessons and books become fashionable. 

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“Not long ago a prominent American writer suggested that etiquette should be taught in the public schools, with some authentic work on the subject for a text book. Apparently her suggestion fell in with the public mind. And why not? There is nothing which sets the individual at ease in any society like training in the ordinary social usages.”

“ETIQUETTE”

The most called-for book at present in a great city library is a volume on “etiquette,” recently put on the market by a woman honestly conversant with the subject in its application to modern life. It is an interesting situation. Not long ago a prominent American writer suggested that etiquette should be taught in the public schools, with some authentic work on the subject for a text book. Apparently her suggestion fell in with the public mind. And why not? There is nothing which sets the individual at ease in any society like training in the ordinary social usages. 

Most social distinctions are made not upon the merit of the individual but upon his manners. Nothing fans class bitterness more fiercely than the unfortunate comparison between the unconscious ease of one who has had the advantage of training in the ordinary etiquette of polite society and another who has been denied it. If America is a true democracy, why should not this difference be wiped out by training in the public schools, just as other differences are, by daily study and practice? — Stockton Independent, 1923

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

Soup Etiquette Tips

Sherry is the first wine offered at dinner, and then usually with a soup that contains Sherry in the preparation. Sherry should never be offered with cream of chicken soup or vichyssoise, but with turtle or black-bean soup, for instance. Clear soups are often served in a shallow bowl rather than a cup. When the level of soup is so low that you must lift the bowl to avoid scraping the bottom, lift the near edge with your left hand and tip the bowl away from you. Then spoon the soup away from you.

When soup is served for a luncheon or dinner, Emily Post’s “Etiquette” offers the following advice:

• Soup should be the first of six courses. It should be followed by fish, the entree, salad, dessert and coffee. Six is the maximum number of courses for even the most elaborate dinner; and for an informal luncheon, two or three courses are sufficient— soup, entree and dessert.
• Soup at a luncheon is served in two-handled cups. The soup is eaten with a teaspoon, or the cup may be picked up and the soup may be sipped, if it has sufficiently cooled. A clear soup is usually served.
• Sherry is the first wine offered at dinner, and then usually with a soup that contains Sherry in the preparation. Sherry should never be offered with cream of chicken soup or vichyssoise, but with turtle or black-bean soup, for instance.
• Clear soups are often served in a shallow bowl rather than a cup. When the level of soup is so low that you must lift the bowl to avoid scraping the bottom, lift the near edge with your left hand and tip the bowl away from you. Then spoon the soup away from you.
• Both soup cups and soup bowls should be served with a saucer or plate beneath them. The spoon, when not in use or when the soup is finished, is laid on the saucer underneath.

Amy Vanderbilt, in the “Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette,” says: 

• Soup should always be kept flowing in the opposite direction from one’s lap. The soup spoon should be filled from its far side, and soup then poured gently into the mouth with its near side.
• Vanderbilt says that if dumplings, vegetables, mushrooms or other garnishes are floating on top, eat these first by using the spoon, before the liquid part of the soup is drunk. If noodles are at the bottom of the bowl, spoon them up before consuming the liquid.
• If you take a large spoonful of extremely hot soup, don’t spit it out, concludes Vanderbilt. Instead, take a quick drink of water to cool your mouth. If you have burned your mouth, an exception may be made to the rule against drinking with food already in your mouth.

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

Chicken, Lobster and Finger Bowls

“People are less lenient than they used to be. That is, if we go back to the descriptions given us by the writers of long ago, and as copied for instance in the moving picture of Henry VIII, who picked up a whole chicken in his hands and tore it apart, our table manners have become positively finicking.” Au contraire, mon frère!!!
—————— 
When it comes to table manners, we have no grounds to feel superior to Henry VIII. He observed complex etiquette. Emily Post’s knowledge of Tudor era etiquette, along with the portrayal of Henry VIII’s dining manners, were both incorrect. Henry VIII acted like an animal at times, but not while dining. Yes, even many “etiquette experts” get it wrong. One was quoted as saying this, upon the release of his 2013 book of etiquette: “In Henry VIII’s time, it was good manners to chuck lamb bones over one’s shoulder for the greyhounds to feed. That would cause raised eyebrows these days.”

Hands Off Chicken, Modern Code Insists

Dear Mrs. Post: Is it incorrect, according to etiquette, to eat even the slightest bit of chicken in the fingers? I don’t mean whether it is correct to take up what can be cut off the bone easily enough, but I am referring to the very small bones from which it is impossible to cut meat loose with a knife and fork. Aren’t good table manners today more lenient about these foods, especially if finger bowls are provided? 

Answer: No, people are less lenient than they used to be. That is, if we go back to the descriptions given us by the writers of long ago, and as copied for instance in the moving picture of Henry VIII, who picked up a whole chicken in his hands and tore it apart, our table manners have become positively finicking. The only things that could soil the fingers and are not tabooed by the meticulous are lobster claws. And when such lobster is served, finger bowls of hot soapy water should be provided at once. Perhaps, if this practice were followed when serving chicken, there would be no objection to taking the wings in the fingers. — Mill Valley Record, 1937

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

A Respiratory Etiquette Debate

The consensus of the etiquette experts is that a yawn or a sneeze is only one degree removed from the gravest of all social errors – eating peas with a knife. – Photo source, Pinterest 

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18– Just as the nation was moving safely out of the hay-fever season into winter's cold-in-the-head era, the question of the proper etiquette for sneezing arose today and split the ranks of the distinguished scholars who have studied the subject. It seems to be a clear-cut fight, winner take all, between Dr. Severance Burrage, professor of public health at the University of Colorado, on one side, and the United States Government and Mrs. Emily Post on the other. 

FAVORS SNEEZE 

Burrage came out flatly in favor of a good, healthy uninhibited sneeze. He went through a process which we Americans have come to refer to as hurling a defi at the Namby-Pamby persons who seem to stifle sneezes and yawns. The argument runs that as an expression of your personality, there is nothing like a leisurely 80-second yawn, which closes with a contented “ho hum.” Never suppress one; not even when the boss, just back from his vacation, tells you for the third time about the view from his hotel window and how he and the missus got the room for $5 a day dirt cheap, with meals included. But there is another point that Burrage wishes to hammer home:

“Influenza, pneumonia and other diseases often are caused by the contamination of food and utensils by food handlers whose fingers have been placed over the mouths to settle a sneeze or a yawn.” Stop shuddering, Mrs. Post, and just tell the court in your own words why you disagree with the doctor. The witness testifies that sneezes and yawns must be suppressed at any cost or the social fabric of the nation will collapse. The consensus of the etiquette experts is that a yawn or a sneeze is only one degree removed from the gravest of all social errors – eating peas with a knife. To the support of the etiquette experts rushes the United States public health service with a charming little essay on how influenza germs leap from yawn to yawn and from sneeze to sneeze. The author writes lyrically:

ONLY ONE VOICE

“True, I am only one voice, but I lift up that voice like a foghorn on a misty morning to protest against the habit of the tobacco clerks who dampen their fingers on their tongues and then serve a harmless customer with a package of cigarettes.” But the public health service goes even further. Not only does it want to suppress yawns and sneezes, but it wants to do something about kissing too. “The Chinese custom,” the essay continues, “of bowing and shaking one's own hand is far more desirable from a sanitary standpoint.” Begging your pardon, United States public health service, but the comment that comes readily to the mind is: “Kerchoo!” — By Harry Ferguson (United Press Correspondent), 1933

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

Emily Post on Candles and Smokers

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 

From “Good Taste Today” 

Dear Mrs. Post: Will you please tell me, first if it is proper to use unlighted candles (in candelabra) on the buffet merely as decoration? Second, if it is proper to use them then, should the candles be new or should they be lighted and snuffed out, leaving chaired ends?  

Answer: If by a buffet you mean a sideboard, candelabra are suitable decoration. There is no rule about burning off the candles, but if you did this the candelabra would at least look as though they were sometimes used on the dining table and merely stood on the sideboard between while. Candles are, of course, always put on an evening buffet table and lighted beforehand unless in summer when the evening meal begins in daylight.  

Dear Mrs. Post: How can I be courteous about letting visitors in my house know that I do not like cigaret smoke? Any one using strong perfume is supposed to be showing very bad taste, and yet cigaret smoke smells equally strong, to say nothing of smoke-drenched clothes worn by the inveterate smokers. When I have to spend a day or evening with smokers, I am completely seasick. 

Answer: If people you care very little about are the smokers, the solution is simple enough since you need not continue inviting them to your house. If, however, all the people you like best smoke, you will, I am afraid, have to accustom yourself to smoke or resign yourself to loneliness. On the other hand, I think it only fair to mention that your friends should in their turn show reasonable consideration for you. 

Every smoker should realize that smoking at a dining table, which has not been furnished with ash trays and cigarets, is a breach of etiquette. After the meal, of course, the question of courtesy goes into reverse and those who dislike smoke are unhappily for themselves expected to tolerate it. One thing that might help you, if you have not already discovered it, is to remove the dead ends constantly from the ash trays or better still, get especial ash receivers with water compartments beneath trap tops which prevent that stale smell, which is more than likely the cause of your feeling of seasickness. —Emily Post, 1939

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

More Etiquette from Emily Post

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 

Dear Mrs. Post: May a young woman who is going out with a young man for the evening, wear a corsage sent to her by some one else? 

Answer: I think a man who has very little money and who had wanted to send her flowers and was not able to afford it, might feel not only embarrassed but distressed. A so-called “gilded youth,” meaning one whose purse is more man usually deep, would not be likely to notice the flowers. If he does, he'll probably say, “Oh, I'm sorry,” and remember to send her some at another time.

Dear Mrs, Post: Mr. and Mrs. Graham are both medical doctors and both practising. How shall I introduce them socially and how can I let strangers know that they are man and wife? To say Dr. Mary Graham and Dr. John Graham might give the impression to some that they are brother and sister. 

Answer: Introduce them as Dr. Graham and his wife, Dr. Mary Graham. In this particular case it is best that the wife be introduced second rather than first, because to say Dr. Mary Graham and her husband, Dr. John Graham, does not sound as well as the other way about.

Dear Mrs. Post: Would it be sliding over one's obligations to give a dessert bridge in return for the other people's lunch party invitations? I am indebted to so many people and I cannot afford to give a real lunch party but that I might have a dessert bridge instead, if that could be considered a fair return. 

Answer: It is not necessary to repay hospitality in kind, but a fraction of a lunch in return for many complete luncheons would be a less happy choice than another type of party altogether. Therefore, I would rather suggest a buffet meal, either lunch or supper, and not just the last course of a luncheon. However, if a buffet meal is too much of an undertaking, it would be entirely proper to give a bridge party and serve afternoon tea with little sandwiches and cakes. According to best form, nothing more than this should be served at a bridge party, ever.

Dear Mrs. Post: At a dinner for 200, to celebrate a silver wedding anniversary, would the guests be seated with place cards at the small tables? 

Answer; I think most people find themselves more at ease if they have a definite place to go to, but it would not be easy to seat as many as 200. In other words, It is entirely correct to seat all the tables and on the other hand all right just to seat your own table, which includes yourself and the original bridal party and any others whom you would like especially to have with you. —Emily Post, 1939

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

Evolving Etiquette and the Posts

In 1969, publishers Funk and Wagnalls came out with a replica edition of Emily Post’s 1922 book, “Etiquette” for $10.00– for $6.95, they also came out with Elizabeth Post’s revised 12th edition of the same book. A writer compared the two books. – Photo above, Elizabeth Post, circa 1969

Emily Post’s first edition of “Etiquette” vs Elizabeth Post’s updated, twelfth edition of the same book. What has changed since 1922?

Nearly fifty years have passed since Emily Post's first published guide to good manners, but her basic world of etiquette and the underlying reasons for it, live on. It's not the same etiquette to be sure the bewildering world of valets, footmen, chaperones, finger bowls and P.P.C. cards and the rules associated with them, have disappeared as times have changed. What has remained is the idea that etiquette is good manners, “a goal that can be achieved only by making consideration and unselfishness an integral part of your behavior.” 

Comparing the index of Emily Post's first edition which appeared in 1922 with the 12th revised edition, updated in 1969 by Elizabeth Post (the wife of Emily's grandson) shows how informal American living has become. In the original, the topic “Informal Entertaining” is not even included in the index: the only mention along this line is to a “House Party in Camp.” In contrast, seventy-nine pages of the current edition are devoted to “Informal Entertainment,” including cocktail parties, picnics, showers, buffets, etc. No longer are we concerned with the rules for bowing; the sole reference to bowing deals with “bowing to the President of the United States.” Today two pages are devoted to butlers; the 1922 edition contained twelve pages on butlers and three on footmen. It's particularly amusing to compare the Post's pronouncements on the correct way to treat social situations of the day: 

MONEY MATTERS “Everyone has at some time been subjected to the awkward moment when the waiter presents the check to the host ... to avoid this transaction people who have no charge accounts should order the meal ahead, and at the same time pay for it in advance, including the waiter's tip.” 1st edition – “When everyone has finished his meal, the host catches the eyes of the waiter or headwaiter and says, ‘The check please’ He looks at it, checks it quickly for mistakes and returns it to the plate with the necessary money . . .” 12th edition.

LADIES TRAVELING “On a railroad train, if a stranger happens to offer to open a window for her, it does not give him the right to more than a civil ‘thank you.’ If, in spite of etiquette she should on a long journey drift into conversation with an obviously well-behaved youth, she should remember that talking with him at all is contrary to the proprieties.” 1st edition – “On a long journey if you happen to sit next to or near the same person on the dining car for a number of meals, it is extremely unfriendly to sit in wooden silence.” 12th edition.

CHAPERONS “The conventions of propriety demand that every young woman must be protected by a chaperon, because otherwise she will be misjudged. A young girl never goes even to an unmarried doctor's or a clergyman's (unless the latter is very elderly) without a chaperon who in this instance may be a semi elderly maid.” 1st edition – “From an ethical standpoint the only chaperon worth having in the present day is a young girl's own efficiency in chaperoning herself. The girl who has been taught to appraise every person and situation she meets needs no one to sit beside her and tell her what to do.” 12th edition.

To many people, particularly to the younger generation, even the 12th edition may seem a bit stilted and formal. Because of Elizabeth Post's reluctance to leave anything out, the modern edition, too, becomes amusing. For instance under the heading “Smoking in Public” we are told that it is taboo to smoke on the dance floor. “Not only does it look unattractive but there is a very real danger of burning your partner or his or her clothes.” Really, isn't this just common sense? That's what etiquette is all about. – Arleen Abrahams for the Santa Cruz Sentinel, 1969

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