Dinner Party Etiquette Humor of 1882

 

Oranges are held on a fork while being peeled, and the facetious style of squirting the juice into the eyes of your host is au revoir. 

It is with a view of elevating the popular taste, and etherealizing, so to speak, the manners and customs of our readers, that we give below a few hints upon table etiquette: 

• Oranges are held on a fork while being peeled, and the facetious style of squirting the juice into the eyes of your host is au revoir. 
• Macaroni should be cut into short pieces and eaten with an even, graceful motion, not absorbed by the yard. 
• If, by mistake, you drink out of your finger bowl, laugh heartily and make some facetious remark, which will change the course of conversation and renew the friendly feeling among the members of the party. 
• In drinking wine, when you get to the bottom of your glass, do not throw your head back and draw in your breath like the exhaust of a bath tub in order to get the last drop, as it engenders a feeling of the most depressing melancholy among the guests. 
• If you cannot accept an invitation to supper, do not write your regrets on the back of a pool check with a blue lead pencil. This is not regarded as ricochet. A simple note to your host informing him that your washerwoman refuses to relent is sufficient. 
• On seating yourself at the table, draw off your gloves, put them in your lap under your napkin. Do not put them in the gravy, as it would spoil the gloves and cast a gloom over the gravy. 
• If you have just cleaned your gloves with benzine, you must leave them out in the front yard.—Cincinnati Fair Journal, 1882

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

Of Etiquette, Bolsheviks and Satire

The Bolshevik, by Boris Kustodiev

 – Bolsheviks, or Reds, came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The Bolsheviks, founded by Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov, were by 1905 a major organization consisting primarily of workers under a democratic internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism, who considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism.

Silent screen star May Allison, star of  1919’s “Uplifters, the Free,” played Hortense Troutt. In the film, Hortense attends a "Bull-Shevik" lecture and is won over to the Bolshevik cause. The next day she quits her stenographer’s job working for a capitalist. She finds the woman who gave the lecture and offers her services. The woman promptly puts her new comrade to work as a maid. The work, without pay, of course, becomes harder by the day, and in what short amounts of spare time she has, she is expected to type speeches. Romanced by an older "Bull-Shevik," Hortense has to give him $49.00 to buy a suit in which he can marry her. But a new convert happens along. The new convert is the son of Hortense's former boss. In love with Hortense, he’s been looking for her ever since she quit her job. When Hortense finds that her old "Bull-Shevik" suitor is married already, Hortense dumps both him and the unpaid job as a maid. She becomes a convert to the cause for capitalism and her new, honest suitor. 

Here’s Etiquittesky of the Bolshevisky; Savvy, Folksky!

After participating in a Bohemian banquet in her Bolshevehicle, “Free,” May Allison decided to issue some hints on etiquette gratis to all Bolsheviks: 

• Soup should be seen and not heard. 
• Ladies will not flick cigarette ashes in the butter. 
• Gentlemen will wring their beards after the soup course. 
• If the roast is not done to your taste it is mean to throw it at the hostess. 
• Never slice bread; Bolsheviks are whole loafers. 
• It is not considered au fait to eat spaghetti with a knife when proper implements are provided. You will find them on your right hand—four fingers and a thumb. - Los Angeles Herald, 1919

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

Etiquette, Snobbery and Satire

"Say 'good morning' or 'good evening' to the hostess, on leaving the room. 'So long, old girl' has gone out in the best society." — Burdette ~ When Emily Post wrote about the behavior of "Best Society" in her 1922 book of etiquette, she enlightened some readers and at the same time, opened the door to satire from others. Etiquette humor is much older than many think. It has been popular for ages, and will continue to be so, as long as some readers and writers of etiquette, continue to confuse etiquette with snobbery.

Recent Points in Etiquette

• Say "good morning" or "good evening" to the hostess, on leaving the room. "So long, old girl" has gone out in the best society. 
• If there are seventy-five or 100 persons in the company, it is not necessary for you to shake hands all round. 
• Do not be in haste to get down to dinner without waiting for a tardy guest. Give him at least thirty minutes. You may have to get down on your hands and knees and crawl around and feel for a lost collar button yourself sometime. 
• Upon introduction to a young lady, immediately ask her age and the size of her shoes. This will put you on an easy conversational plane. 
• In society, a note requires as prompt an answer as a spoken question. And in the bank it requires a great deal prompter one. 
• Do not thank any one who waits on you at table. Look wan and hungry as though you wanted more. 
• To tilt back in your chair and drum idly on your head with your fork is condemned in good society.— "Burdette" in the Marin Journal, 1881

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

Comic Parody of Victorian Society Etiquette

Charles Dodgson, better known as "Lewis Carroll"

Hints for Etiquette... Or, Dining Out Made Easy was written in Lewis Carroll's youth, and is a comic parody of the strict, often absurd, rules of refined Victorian Era Society etiquette. He later authored  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

“As caterers for the public taste, we can conscientiously recommend this book to all diners-out who are perfectly unacquainted with the usages of society. However we may regret that our author has confined himself to warning rather than advice, we are bound in justice to say that nothing here stated will be found to contradict the habits of the best circles...”

The following examples exhibit a depth of penetration and a fullness of experience rarely met with:

I. In proceeding to the dining-room, the gentleman gives one arm to the lady he escorts– it is unusual to offer both. 

II. The practice of taking soup with the next gentleman but one is now wisely discontinued; but the custom of asking your host his opinion of the weather immediately on the removal of the first course still prevails. 

III. To use a fork with your soup, intimating at the same time to your hostess that you are reserving the spoon for beefsteaks, is a practice wholly exploded. 

IV. On meat being placed before you, there is no possible objection to your eating it, if so disposed; still in all such delicate cases, be guided entirely by the conduct of those around you. 

V. It is always allowable to ask for artichoke jelly with your boiled venison; however there are houses where this is not supplied. 

VI. The method of helping roast turkey with two carving-forks is praticable, but deficient in grace. 

VII. We do not recommend the practice of eating cheese with a knife and fork in one hand, and a spoon and wine-glass in the other; there is a kind of awkwardness in the action which no amount of practice can entirely dispel. 

VII. As a general rule, do not kick the shins of the opposite gentleman under the table, if personally unacquainted with him; your pleasantry is liable to be misunderstood — a circumstance at all times unpleasant. 

IX. Proposing the health of the boy in buttons immediately on the removal of the cloth is custom springing from regard to his tender years, rather than from a strict adherence to the rules of etiquette.

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