Etiquette and Good Conversation

The second bit of common sense is to learn when to keep quiet, Brugere said: "It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well, nor judgment to hold their tongues." There needs to be both give and take in good conversation. Carlyle said it this way: "Speech is great, but silence is greater." Learn to both speak and listen well...

Let's Talk — Rediscover art of good conversation

“Don't be a conversation dropout” is almost a byword. We are encouraged in many ways to rediscover what has almost become a lost art, the rich enjoyment of good. conversation. 

The principle behind good conversation is simple. It is just good manners, or common sense in the consideration of others in the exchange of ideas.

I offer you the following tried and proven ways of enjoying conversation with your fellow mortals:

• First rule is absolute. Do not center your contribution on yourself, your spouse, home or your health. The easiest rock to hit in the stream of good conversation is your own ego. When you are hung up at this level of contribution, the listener is soon bored, and the items of common concerns of objective interest are lost. Items which are objective, such as advances in science, art, vital world events or sports allow rewarding conversation to take place.
• The second bit of common sense is to learn when to keep quiet, Brugere said: "It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well, nor judgment to hold their tongues." There needs to be both give and take in good conversation. Carlyle said it this way: "Speech is great, but silence is greater." Learn to both speak and listen well... 
• Another undiscovered error that many commit is the conversation stopper "You are wrong!" The results will either be silence, change of subject, or the degeneration into emotion or argument. Certainly there is no exchanging of ideas, much less the fun of minds meeting and exchanging ideas.

The use of phrases such as "I do not agree," or "Let me share how I feel about that," leaves the door open. Giving the other person the respect that there is merit to what he is saying leaves room for both parties to profit. Leave out of your vocabulary door-slamming phrases if you wish to be a conversationalist.

The childish sin of immature conversationalists is that of interrupting. I am sorry that we often see this in its worst form on TV by celebrity panelists who carry the title of expert in their fields. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I can only believe that their idea is so powerful it impels them to share it that instant, and step on someone else's idea, and they cannot help themselves.

But for ordinary mortals, such behavior is a mark of an undisciplined mind and has no business in a mature conversation. It is rude, poor manners and lacks the basic consideration and respect on which intelligent sharing of ideas is based.

While you're listening, learn how to hear the speaker. It will keep you from sitting there glassy-eyed while forming your opening wedge into his stream of thought. When this is the case, you are hearing what he is saying. The reward for listening well may be more than what you may be ready for. People often return the compliment and will listen to you. There is the possibility of a good conversation in the works when this happens.

Listening has another fringe benefit. I listened to a man about his technical subject for an hour, with my posture, hands, eyes as well as my ears. I didn't say more than 10 words. The man later described me to the host as the most interesting conversationalist he had ever met. The next time we met, he asked me about my concerns, and we have had excellent conversations and a good friendship since. Listening is as important as speaking in a conversation.

If you talk well, you have learned how to think well. If you find it hard to contribute to a mature conversation, practice talking to yourself out loud about what you have experienced, felt, read or saw each day. It makes you perceptive, objective and articulate.

Avoid shop talk, to the unfamiliar, and follow your honest curiosity by tossing a bouquet of all bouquets to a speaker, by inquiring further about what he or she is saying. Read outside your field ponder what it means in our fast-moving culture, and you will not be a conversation dropout. I guarantee it. — By Rev. W. Lee Truman, Copley News Service, 1981

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

Gilded Age Etiquette and Manners

Never eat bonbons or confections of any kind on the street, in vehicles or in public places. Munching sweets is considered by all refined and intelligent persons as ill bred and provincial.

Details of Fine Manners

Good manners are the source and inspiration of easy social intercourse. They are the means of bringing people together in gentleness, grace and savoir-faire. For the men or women who observe the amenities of life; who inherit the great gift, the perfect manner; who by goodness of heart and graciousness of disposition pave the way for those about them; who delight and charm human livings, and content them with themselves—they have at last reached the place in life in which they are a source of perpetual pleasure, an ever abiding joy to those who know them and a cheer and sunshine to those who believe in them. 

An authority on social matters adds, in Harper's Bazar, the following suggestions for attaining the pleasing condition described in the foregoing words: 

• Cultivate dress as a fine art, for minute attention to personal adornment and elegance of toilet is the duty of every man or woman in civilized society. It is the outward show that enables the world to judge of us personally, our character, refinement and condition, of the station in life in which we are thrown. It is a duty we owe our family, our friends and the world at large. It is the passport to good breeding and the support of fine manners. 
• Never eat bonbons or confections of any kind on the street, in vehicles or in public places. Munching sweets is considered by all refined and intelligent persons as ill bred and provincial. 
• Study repose of manner. Swinging of arms, humming of tunes, frequent contortions of the face and restlessness of feet and hands are not only very trying to your family, but they are a source of irritation and annoyance to others.
• After visiting an out of town house a letter sent within a week is equivalent to a call. 
• Never discuss yourself, your servants or domestic affairs. In polite circles conversation is of a nature so general that continual talking of one’s self is considered ill bred and vulgar. 
• Never interrupt conversation at any time or in any place. A good listener is a great boon to mankind. 
• There is a code of rules which is the result of all these social observances. A sentence, an incident, an opinion expressed should be given without interruption. 
• Be careful in carrying small bundles or parcels on which the name of the shopkeeper appears. A silk bag for these small purchases obviates this difficulty and makes for the buyer a helpful article in traveling or shopping. 
• It is not necessary at all times to offer your seat to a lady in a street car or omnibus, but there are two cases when it should be the inevitable rule -an elderly person or a woman with a child in her arms. To either this courtesy should be extended. Consideration for age and helplessness is always appreciated.– 1892

 

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

Legacies of Lords and Their Queen

Lord Stanley, the 17th Earl of Derby, was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was a British soldier, diplomat, and racehorse owner. He was twice Secretary of State for War and also served as British Ambassador to France. His father, also “Lord Stanley” and the 16th Earl of Derby, was the sixth Governor General of Canada, and gave Canada a treasured national icon, hockey’s Stanley Cup.

On the late Lord Derby – The man who was the life and soul of the Conservative party in England for years was in private life one of the most genial and childlike of men. To the last, his spirit of natural gayety never left him, and his wife was, as it were, the shadow of himself. A story was current in London society about this characteristic buoyancy of his, and his son’s no less characteristic ponderosity, not to say boorishness. Dining with the Queen one day, he had been speaking of light and amusing matters, entirely sinking the statesman in the polished man of the world, when the Queen, during a pause in the conversation, suddenly asked him his opinion on a certain political matter then before Parliament. 

He gave it at once, whereupon his royal hostess, seemingly very much amused, said to him, “Lord Stanley (his eldest son now Lord Derby, and a very able politician) was dining with me the other day, and I asked him the same question, which he answered very differently; so I said to him, ‘Your father does not think so.’” ‘No, ma’am,’ he said very gravely, ‘I know it; but my father, ma’am, is a very sanguine man.’” Lord Derby laughed, and, assuming all his son’s cumbersome manner and cumbersome, guttural speech, said with a roguish twinkle in his eye, “And my son, ma’am, is a very cautious man.” 

This anecdote is a capital illustration of the oral characters to whom it refers, the Queen delighting and having great tact in drawing out her guests by judicious little remarks of her own. Thus those Windsor dinners, despite the very strict etiquette of the English court, were skillfully shorn of their tedium, and rendered a pleasant remembrance to all who partook of them. That, however, was before Prince Albert’s death. 

In his own house in St. James’ Square, London, Lord Derby was peculiarly charming. Indeed, he was more charming than absolutely clever, yet it was so strange to think that the same man who at the informal meal of luncheon (of which, unlike many men, he was very fond) could so sparkle with harmless vivacity of spirits, was the same whom other men, cleverer than himself, could, listen to without wearying for a whole night in the House of Lords. 

Sometimes at dinner, when his son was present (which never happened except under moral compulsion), he would purposely start a heavy argument, and keep up a close fire of political repartee with his solemn younger self, to the immense but suppressed amusement of his guests, while Lord Stanley would fall unconsciously into the trap, and miss the kindly satire of his father’s imitative voice. Then after awhile, the elder man would drop the argument as if weary of it, and conclude thus: “But then, Stanley, you are so much older and wiser, and know things so well. You must be right.”— Lady Blanche Murphy, in the October number of Lippincott's Magazine, 1872

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

Etiquette and Unsolicited Advisors

“Oooh! I didn’t know we’d be playing this game tonight! This might be fun, even though we don’t know one another all that well. After you tell me how you feel about my personal affairs, I’ll tell you how I feel about yours.”

Some Wise Advise from Miss Manners

Dear Miss Manners: A business associate in my office has recently found enlightenment through some EST-like encounter group. He is so enthusiastic about his new passion that he is telling everybody friends, colleagues, even clients. He has already told me that he “senses” that I would really benefit from taking this “training.” Since I have to work with this man, I have always been polite and cordial, but I have absolutely no desire to have any kind of personal relationship with him. I am quite close to his ex-wife, and know too much about his personal life from her perspective. Now this man is repeatedly asking me (and others in the office) to lunch, and I'm sure he wants to proselytize. How can I refuse and continue to maintain a pleasant working relationship with him and continue to lunch with other associates? Can I accept on condition he not discuss his new religion? Can I refuse to discuss certain topics at lunch? Can you come up with a more creative option? I don't think I could keep lunch down if I had to listen to his spiel. 

Gentle reader: Unsolicited therapy is one of the curses of our age. People who kindly offer to help one, often suggesting solutions for problems one didn't know one had, are a menace. If you don't learn to defend yourself, you will be at the mercy of everyone who has discovered a new diet, exercise program, astrologist or saint-upon-earth. One must always be polite, but one needn’t therefore suffer the effects of other people’s rudeness. And it is rude, as well as arrogant, to presume to prescribe for others. By declaring that you would benefit from whatever form of help he offers, the proselytizer is making it clear that he finds you unsatisfactory as is. The best way to deal with bores is to avoid them. A good working relationship does not require socializing. You can already declare a lunch date when he asks you, or, failing one, announce your intention to eat alone because you want to think. Should you get stuck, the polite way to say, “Shut up, you're boring me senseless” is, “Yes, so you've already told me,” accompanied by a vacant smile and followed by a change of subject. The polite way to say, “You have your nerve telling me how I should run my life” is, “You’re very kind to take an interest in my personal affairs, considering how little you know about me, but it really isn’t necessary, thank you.” In this case, you are in a position to add, “You know I’ve always put aside any personal information I happen to have heard about you from your ex-wife, because we have such a nice professional relationship. Let's keep it that way.” That is the polite method of blackmail. United Feature Syndicate, 1985

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

Etiquette and Dinner Conversation

The tongue is the best member we possess, potentially not only an artist, but a philosopher, philanthropist, reformer and nurse all in one.
“The best of life is conversation.” –  Emerson    

The prosperous-appearing, but unhappy-looking, quartet pictured here have not received news of a distressing bereavement, nor are they brooding after a quarrel. Owing to their lack of ability to entertain each other by conversation, they are simply bored to death. Sounds from the restaurant orchestra, hidden under the palms, having ceased temporarily, they are so deficient in the quality of self-entertainment, they look and act as if life had no future attraction for them.

For this scene in actual life, look any night in the restaurants and hotel dining-rooms where people congregate. The decline in the art of conversation has made necessary the modern “eating orchestra,” which helps diners to fill up the gaps between noise in gabbling about fashion, gossip, scandal, etc. Once such topics are exhausted, the ordinary dining party is stumped and at the end of its intellectual rope.

Music, a sacred thing, capable of inspiring the understanding and lifting it to a realm which it could not reach if left to itself, is degraded when made the aid of gluttony and intemperance, and is being forced to take the place of conversation in the dining-room only because of a universal neglect to train the faculty of speech, a condition found and rapidly grown worse in all the civilized countries of the world.

Civilization has brought innumerable blessings and also many penalties. Few things in life are simple any more. The more we get, the more quarrelsome we become, and the more we desire. We fight not only for life, but for its superfluities —for the things money alone can buy; and this contest is taking us away from many of the finer enjoyments which, because being free as air to all who would seek them, are neglected. With the progress of civilization has gone the decline of conversation as an art.

Speech is the chief evolution of the mind and the first form it takes; the rapid advance of the art of printing; the cheapness of all forms of daily, weekly and montlily publications, have caused people to depend for their opinions on science, art, literature, religion, business, politics, etc., on a favorite paper, instead of measuring for themselves the facts presented, and through intellectual conversation at home, or in society, get the varied lights and viewpoints which would lead them to accurate personal judgment which might indeed not be different but more satisfactory.

Conversation, which has been described as the music of the mind, is an orchestra in which all instruments have an equal part but do not play together, and was in former days the principal means of knowledge, and might in our day, if encouraged and cultivated, be one of the greatest helps to pleasure and social intimacy. An old Hebrew poet said that the tongue is the best member we possess, potentially not only an artist, but a philosopher, philanthropist, reformer and nurse all in one. – From “The Lost Art of Conversation,” 1909

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