Etiquette, Snobbery and Bohemia

Finding oneself among those free-spirit bohemians evidently happens by accident– The word bohemian has two meanings: one is a person from Bohemia, a historical region in central Europe, and the other is ‘a person who is living an unconventional and artistic life.” The story of Puccini’s popular opera “La Boheme,” is set in 1830’s Paris and shows the “Bohemian lifestyle” of a poor seamstress and her artist friends.

What is Bohemia, you ask? Is it the kingdom where God's charity take precedence to etiquette? No. That's what it ought to be. Is it a kingdom in which people enjoy that which they think they ought to like? No. That’s what it might be, but the results might be disastrous.

It is a kingdom where bottles are more plenteous than baths, curaçao more common than corsets, borrowing more fashionable than paying back; hours, wages, doctrines and meals irregular? Yes, my children; that's about what it is.

Few persons travel straight, with serious intent, to Bohemia. They get there by accident. They take the train to Long Branch or Newport, and it breaks down. When they look to see what station they have stopped at they see no name. But they do see an absence of carriages and liveries, and are there by accident. They take the train aire.

There is also a dearth of children, and a few irrelevant little things only have one name apiece. However, the ladies make up for this by having three each. It is also noticeable that the ladies work harder than the gentlemen in this settlement, and that the latter do not encourage the bootblacks or savings banks.

Then one day the traveler who has halted by accident at this strange settlement, having gained the above impressions, says over the spaghetti (of course, all Bohemian rites are observed over the spaghetti): “By the bye– excuse my ignorance – but where am I?” And the inhabitant questioned answers, smiling strangely: ‘You’re in Bohemia. Isn't it jolly? Say, could you accommodate me with five dollars?’

Then the traveler knows it is Bohemia. Understand me, I am not disparaging this section any more than I should disparage that region called society if anyone in that class needed my advice.

Society is no more entertaining or generous than Bohemia– at least so I am told by Bohemians who have been invited to dinners in Society– when Society gets hard up for amusement and derives a little by watching to see if Bohemia can pick out an oyster fork, or say, “Thank you sir.”– Outlook, 1908

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

A Parody of Manners

Sir John Betjeman, British Politician and Statesman(1958)

✍🏻 ✍🏻 ✍🏻 ✍🏻 ✍🏻

“This delicious mockery of the nouveau-riche British middle-class is spot on. Betjeman has, it seems, made a note of all the pretentious vocabulary he has ever heard used by the likes of Mrs Bucket (pronounced ‘Bouquet’ by its owner, of course) and put them into the mouth of a (presumably) female narrator. Many of these solecisms were, of course, noted by Nancy Mitford in her ‘U and Non-U’. If you’re wondering how the lady of the house betrays herself… ‘phone’ instead of ‘telephone’, ‘cook’ instead of the person’s name, ‘serviettes’ instead of ‘napkins’, ‘toilet’ instead of ‘lavatory’ or ‘loo’, ‘lounge’ instead of ‘drawing-room’, and so forth.” – Quoting from a 2013 blog post by actor, award-winning broadcaster, writer and classical music critic, Jeremy Nicholas

How To Get On In Society 

by John Betjeman 

Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.

Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.

It's ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule's comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know that I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones;
Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

This poem was brought to us by Author Amy Willcock. Amy was the Best in Show Winner for the Etiquette Community in our 2nd Annual Etiquipedia Place Setting Competition. She is most well known for her books on AGA Stove cooking. Her books, "The Aga Bible," "Aga Cooking," "Aga Seasons," "Amy Willcock's Aga Baking," "Amy Willcock's Aga Know-How,"" At Home with Amy Willcock," and "B&B Know-How” are available on Amazon.

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

A Look at 19th C. Snobbery

Snobbery flourishes in fluid societies where a prosperous and rising middle-class presses on the heels of an established aristocracy. It is a defense-mechanism and, as such, may perhaps be excused. But the Victorians certainly pushed it to extreme lengths. Although they lived in the great era of commercial expansion, everybody “who was anybody” had to pretend that he had nothing to do with Trade.

THE Victorians were snobs: In fact, they invented the term. It was Thackeray who gave it its present significance. Snobbery does not flourish in rigid societies, like that of the eighteenth century when every one knew a lord by the star of some order on his coat. Snobbery flourishes in fluid societies where a prosperous and rising middle-class presses on the heels of an established aristocracy.

It is a defense-mechanism and, as such, may perhaps be excused. But the Victorians certainly pushed it to extreme lengths. Although they lived in the great era of commercial expansion, everybody “who was anybody” had to pretend that he had nothing to do with Trade.

THERE were two curious exceptions to this rule: it was always permissible for a gentleman to be a wine merchant, and toward the end of the Victorian period it began to be possible to be a stockbroker without losing caste. Barristers were accepted members of gentility's ranks, but solicitors were not; nor doctors. Even as late as the Eighteen Eighties it is surprising (and rather distressing) to find, in, for example, George du Maurier's cartoons in Punch, how much time and thought the Victorians gave to such questions.

It was all very difficult for those who were on the borderline and, to help them, etiquette books began to be published in large numbers. When even these did not supply the right answers there were the correspondence columns of magazines like The Queen.

Many of the inquiries were concerned with the complicated ritual of “leaving cards.” “If the lady is at home, give your name to the servant, who will announce you; and, as you go out, leave two of your husband's cards in the hall, one for the host and one for the hostess. As you have seen her, you naturally would not leave your own card.”

“Going in to dinner” was a process even more formal. “The host communicates to each gentleman the name of the lady he is to take in to dinner the butler announces the latter to his master, who then offers his arm to the lady appointed to be escorted by him. This should be either the oldest lady, the lady of the highest rank, or the greatest stranger. The other guests follow arm-in arm, and the hostess closes the procession, escorted by the gentleman who has been appointed to the honorable post for one of the three reasons above-mentioned, as being the oldest or of highest rank, etc.” Plenty of pitfalls here for the aspiring hostess not quite sure of her position!– The New York Times, 1960

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

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

Having Money vs Having Manners

 

The same people who say they disdain manners are outraged when they are treated rudely by those who are of their own circumstances or whose services they are buying. Why, then, does etiquette's reputation for abetting snobbery persist? — It is believed that the word “snobbery” came into use for the first time in 1820’s England. According to Wikipedia, “‘Snob’ is a pejorative term for a person that believes there is a correlation between social status and human worth.” The word “snob” also refers to a person that feels superiority over those from lower education levels, lower “social classes,” or other social areas.

The Poor Can Have Manners, and the Rich Can Lack Taste

Considering the frenzy of interest in consumer goods in this society, it is astonishing to Miss Manners that so many people presume that the gentle art of manners is based on a preoccupation with money. Etiquette, it is widely believed, consists of forms of behavior requiring fortunes in silverware, evening clothing and unwieldy vehicles. Most people only feel they need etiquette on occasions when they are spending a great deal of money putting on a wedding, for example. Otherwise, they can apparently make do with rudeness. 

Dear, dear. You can imagine how upsetting Miss Manners finds this. She doesn't know which offends her more, the people who seek to demonstrate their genuineness by eschewing manners or those who are scrambling to learn them to serve their social ambitions. They both end up being rude. The truth is that there is very little relationship between manners and money. Certainly, Miss Manners has never noticed any preponderance of politeness on the part of the rich. Good manners are, first of all, free. And that is not generally true of status symbols.

Secondly, they cover all forms of outward human behavior, from those needed for the most routine daily encounters in households or on highways, to the special ones for special occasions. And thirdly, the consequences of violating them in ordinary life are more unpleasant than the effects of small technical errors on formal occasions, when it would be rude of other people present to notice. The same people who say they disdain manners are outraged when they are treated rudely by those who are of their own circumstances or whose services they are buying. Why, then, does etiquette's reputation for abetting snobbery persist? 

Miss Manners attributes part of it to the fact that one always thinks of familiar behavior as being simply natural, and strange behavior as etiquette. Everyday behavior is therefore classified as nice or mean, rather than good manners or bad manners, while the self-consciousness one has on special occasions leads one to identify their traditional practices as manners. But there is also a mistaken belief that knowledge and possession of expensive things are themselves a demonstration of propriety. People sometimes try to lead Miss Manners into condemning inexpensive goods especially clothing made of synthetic materials as “tacky.” If “tacky” is intended to mean “improper,” they are quite wrong. 

Propriety and impropriety have nothing to do with how much one can afford to spend. That someone does not wear expensive fabrics has nothing whatever to do with the quality of the manners that person may exhibit. If “tacky” refers to taste, then there is a connection with money. Rich people may have not only the money to spend, but also more leisure to learn to distinguish quality in material objects. Miss Manners has nothing whatever against such an educational activity, which can be great fun and is not unknown among people who do not have money. 

Since the invention of the museum, people can study and enjoy things without owning them and the rich should remember that their servants usually know more about the quality of their silver and linens, from cleaning them, than the owners do. None of this is within the province of manners, however. Etiquette’s interest in taste, as that applies to consumer items, is chiefly in combating ostentation. What is improper is the diamond bracelet worn for tennis, the car or house referred to as a “limousine” or “mansion,” the designer label any inappropriate display of wealth, or preoccupation with the cost of one’s own or other people’s possessions. In fact, there is hardly anything more rude and vulgar than an active interest in whether someone else's clothes are made of synthetic materials. — Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, 1987

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

Understanding Real Etiquette

Remember... Real etiquette is in acting with polite consideration for others, not acting like trained monkey.

More from the 1920’s Etiquette Book Craze

Being polite becomes more difficult. Social blunders lurk on every side. One of the many books on etiquette, which are raining heavily on the public, says it is a serious “boner” for a man, dining in a restaurant, to pick a fallen fork from the floor, that function “properly” belonging to the waiter. It is also set forth, that dipping both hands in a finger bowl simultaneously, instead of one at a time, is blunder in the first degree. Real etiquette is in acting with polite consideration for others, not like trained monkey. — Livermore Journal, 1925

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

A “What’s Wrong” School of Etiquette

In the decade from 1920 to 1930, about a dozen books of etiquette were published and promoted, including those by Lillian Eichler, Emily Holt and Emily Post. One columnist thought etiquette’s popularity had waned by 1925, however, the 1920’s - 1930’s “Etiquette Era” was just taking a brief break, and would continue for over 10 more years. —Thousands and hundreds of thousands of assorted Americans are worrying over what is wrong with “this picture” and perspiring freely over the choice of forks at a banquet, or words at an introduction.

Frenzied Etiquette 

The latest great non-essential industry to occupy the attention of the American people appears to be a nation-wide concern for the manufacture, sale and use of a more strict etiquette. Led sheep-wise, by a publicity campaign comparable only to the merchandising effort that put Harold Bell Wright on the literary map of the universe, thousands and hundreds of thousands of assorted Americans are worrying over what is wrong with “this picture,” and perspiring freely over the choice of forks at a banquet, or words at an introduction. Like marathon dancing, this activity affords a somewhat painful picture to the observer, but brings with it the comforting thought that so much fruitless enthusiasm will soon burn itself out and be over with. 

The most painful aspect of the craze is the general tone of snobbishness and the laudation of ridicule and embarrassment as a means of teaching “good manners.” Knowledge of etiquette is, of course, nothing to become snobbish about, and the most casual thought will reveal the inadequacy of embarrassment as a preceptor. What the campaign would amount to if it amounted to anything, would be to make the American people a nation of self-conscious dummies, painfully eager to do the “right thing,” horribly fearful of doing the opposite, continually uncomfortable, gauche and ridiculous. There are as many don’ts in the average encyclopedia of cheap etiquette as there are symptoms in a patent medicine almanac. As the symptoms aim to catalogue every possible reaction of the reader’s sensory apparatus, so the admonitions of the etiquette books aim to interpose in every possible situation of daily conduct. 

The aim of the medicine man’s almanac was to make the reader acutely uncomfortable till he “falls for” the medicine man’s product and the aim of the etiquette books is the same. There’s no cause for alarm, of course, in the sudden rise of the “What’s Wrong” school of literature, because the craze for it is happily only a craze, and therefore impermanent. Its effects probably won’t endure long enough to stamp our national subconscious —we’re talking nonsense now —with an inferiority complex. We’ll get over it all right, but like the baby-talk stage of the flapper’s progress, it’s uncomfortable while it lasts. — San Diego Union, 1923

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

Etiquette, Snobbery and Women

“One hears often of a self-made man. He likes to advertise his rise in life. But you never hear of a self-made woman; you never hear a rich woman refer to the time when she was still a mill girl or a servant.” – Virginia Harlan, 1910

Cautioning on the Snobbishness of Women

Women, as a class, are distinctly snobbish. Although it is no extenuation, I grant you that there are snobbish men; but they are altogether out proportioned by the women of snobdom. You will please understand that in the course of these lines I shall refer consistently to the “average’’ woman. You, my dear feminine reader, of course, are not an average woman, and so may judge my statements impartially. Woman, at a very early age, reveals her innate tendency towards snobbishness. 

The little girl with any pretentions to station, gives herself absurd airs when brought into contact with another small child of a lower sphere. Let the small daughter of a tradesman go to a “school for young ladies”— save the mark—and she at once becomes the center of a certain scornful curiosity. Her school mates sneer and giggle at her and, despite their breeding, are not above the sniff ostentatious. They make it very clear to her that they look down on her for the awful fact that her father “keeps a shop.” As the little girl grows up her snobbishness grows with her. In her teens, she plays field games with restraint, hesitating to speak to any other girl players, lest they be of grosser birth than hers. 

Consider the anxiety of the average woman to impress her friends. In order to foster the idea that she has a large dress allowance, she is not above stinting herself in food, so as to have more money to spend on personal adornment. And all these “rolled gold” brooches, and “simulation diamond” rings, and “Peruvian pearl” necklaces — have they not been invented in order to minister to the feminine craving to create an impression? Surely there can be nothing much more snobbish than imitation jewelry! 

One hears often of a self-made man. He likes to advertise his rise in life. But you never hear of a self-made woman; you never hear a rich woman refer to the time when she was still a mill girl or a servant. The woman whose husband is now “getting on well” is always ready to sacrifice her old friends to her snobbishness. Such friends as she does not ruthlessly “cut” she patronizes, and very often they submit to it out of a mere snobbish desire to keep friends with someone rich and influential, who may ask them to dinner with “swells” at a moment's notice—if some guest happens to be unable to come.– By Virginia Harlan, 1910

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

Of Snobs and Manners

Snobbishness consists not of a set of manners, but of a state of mind. It’s possible to eat cabbage with a knife, and still be the most and most intolerable of snobs. – According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the word snob does not come from “sine nobilitate.” Sine nobilitate means “without nobility,” which makes it feel as though it could be the origin for snob. The only problem with this is that the various senses of snob which are concerned with social class and suchlike were not the first meanings of this word. When snob first began to be found in print, it was used as a term for a shoemaker, or cobbler. By the 1830s snob had taken on meanings that were directly related to class, but not in the way that we use it today. This early 19th century sense was “a person not belonging to the upper classes; one not an aristocrat.” In the middle 19th century the word took on the meaning of “one who blatantly imitates, fawningly admires, or vulgarly seeks association with those he regards as his superiors.” Finally, by the beginning of the 20th century snob had come to be used to mean “one who tends to rebuff the advances of those he regards as inferior; one inclined to social exclusiveness.”

Listen, World! One hears a good deal of impolite speech in these days when humanity is being reshuffled for a new deal. How we crow over the downfall of crowns and gloat over the fact that the laborer is at last coming into his own! I gloat with the rest, for I've always felt that the bumper share of the crops should go to the chaps who sow and and them. Nevertheless, it may be well to pause before call too many names. For instance, there's this business of labeling people snobs. The popular definition of a snob is anything that rides in an automobile, understands French, and takes lemon with his tea. There are other distinguishing marks, these are sufficient to you as one of the obnoxious breed. 

Now that's all wrong, dear comrade Hoi Polloi. Snobbishness consists not of a set of manners, but of a state of mind. It’s possible to milk a dozen cows a day, tend a potato patch, split wood, butcher hogs and eat cabbage with a knife, and still be the most and most intolerable of snobs. It’s also possible to own six sets of cars, a gold dinner service, and winter in Honolulu, and still be the most neighborly and helpful of commoners. Odd as it may seem, a flannel shirt is no guarantee of a knightly heart beneath, nor does a silken BVD invariably clothe a knight. 

Many a man rides in an automobile because he has earned it by honest, fair dealing, by industry and intelligence. Many a man reposes in a gutter, because he’d be gutter bound if you gave him a million. And there’s quite as much intolerance, suspicion, meanness and lack of dignity in the tenement as there is in the mansion. Let us by all means do away with social industrial injustice. But while we’re doing: it, let us also remember that individual character is the final, determining factor in a man’s success or failure. The surest sign of a weak or snobbish nature, is a tendency is to blame or envy or flutter the other chap. The Lord gave you two legs. Stand on them and stop making faces at the rest of the world. – Written and Illustrated By Elsie Robinson, 1923

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

Etiquette and “U” People

English novelist, biographer and journalist, Nancy Mitford, was one of the “Bright Young People” on the London social scene in the inter-war years. One of the famed Mitford Sisters, she is best remembered for her novels about upper-class life and her sharp, provocative wit. In the 1950s Mitford was identified with the concept of “U” (Upper) and “Non-U” language. Written in jest, but taken seriously whereby, the “U” and “Non-U” language was to identify social origins and standing by words used by people in everyday speech. Because of this, or in spite of it, Mitford was considered an authority on manners and breeding.

If Britain’s Upper-Class is Slipping, it’s Doing it Gracefully

With the gradual disappearance of the English aristocracy into a quagmire of death duties, imperial decline and middle-class impertinence, it is fortunate that we already have a manual of aristocratic behavior and speech which, if it does not entirely explain how a common man can tell an aristocrat when he sees one, at least explains how English aristocrats recognize each other. The book is “Noblesse Oblige,” edited by Nancy Mitford.

Miss Mitford starts off with an essay by Prof. Alan Ross, a Birmingham University, on Upper-Class English Usage which was printed in Helsinki Finland in 1954. Professor Ross, pointing out that “it is solely by their language that the upper classes are distinguished (since they are neither cleaner, richer, nor better educated than anybody else),” has invented a formula to set them apart from the common ruck of humanity. He classifies expressions used by Upper-Class people as “U” while those used by others are characterized as “Non U.” 

Miss Mitford goes along with most of the Ross classifications, and Evelyn Waugh, who contributes his shilling's worth to the discussion, adds some of his own, like Lord Curzon's dictum that “no gentleman has soup at luncheon.” However, according to Ross, luncheon is no longer “U,” having been displaced by “lunch.” “U” people also have dinner in the evening, although “Non-U” speakers (also “U-children” and “U-dogs”) have their dinner in the middle of the day. 

The worst of it is (or was) that a, “non-U speaker has no way of learning the rules sufficiently well to pass as U in U circles. If he doesn’t betray his lowly origins by pronouncing ‘girl’ as ‘gurl’ instead of a modification of ‘gel,’ he’ll probably goof by saying, ‘Excuse my glove’ when about to shake hands.” 

Of course, non-U people and Americans are likely to think that this kind of thing is intended to impress people who are in trade or wear white socks. Actually, according to Strix, who also contributes to Miss Mitford’s Book, “U speech is not, as many believe, an arrogant and ‘snooty’ institution, used mainly like lorgnettes, for outfacing non-U speakers. It is the natural idiom of a comparatively small class and exists to further the purpose of communication with that class.”

Mr. Waugh, in his amusing comment on the subject declares that as a rule grandees avoid one another "unless they are closely related." In a ducal castle, Mr. Waugh declares, you might find "convalescent penurious cousins, advisory experts, sycophants, gigolos and plain blackmailers. The one thing you could be sure of not finding was a concourse of other dukes." An irreverent American might suspect that unrelieved U-ness can be wearying even to the most indisputably U.– Editorial in the Saturday Evening Post, 1957

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

Etiquette, Snubs and Snobs

It is believed that the word “snobbery” came into use for the first time in 1820’s England. According to Wikipedia, “‘Snob’ is a pejorative term for a person that believes there is a correlation between social status and human worth.” The word “snob” also refers to a person that feels superiority over those from lower education levels, lower “social classes,” or other social areas.

 Who is the Real Snob?

I have noticed more than once that a certain American newspaper which toadies to “the people” makes a point whenever the opportunity offers of denouncing as a “snob” our present Ambassador to France, Mr. Henry White. Within a day or two it has made an unusually vicious attack, asserting that Americans come home from Paris complaining bitterly of having been snubbed at the Embassy, the while our distinguished representative was groveling at the feet of British Lords and French of high degree; or some such nonsense. Once or twice before this I have been tempted to make comment on these charges, not as a matter of duty to Mr. White, with whom I have but the slightest acquaintance, but to the country which sent him abroad as one of its most conspicuous representatives. 

To begin with the specific charge, no man was ever less of a snob than Mr. White. He has now been in the Diplomatic Service of the United States for 26 years, and has left his record wherever he has been accredited as one of the few American gentlemen with whom Europeans could find no fault— as simple and high-bred in manner as he is magnetic, intelligent and sympathetic. With more reason to be spoiled than any American we have ever sent abroad, he has never lost his balance, his courtesy, his sincerity. I have quoted him for years, both in Europe and at home as the American Diplomatist of whom we have the greatest reason to be proud; and not only for his in comparable manners, for his warm and genuine Americanism that no amount of old world polish could hide if it would. What does the average person mean when he uses the word “snob?” This is a question which has often puzzled me, and I have a faint idea that it is a pet word with people who have been, or fancy they have been, snubbed; there being a confused sense of relationship in their minds between the two words. 

A writer of the newspaper I allude to is one of the most pitiful snobs extant, as I understand the word. While toiling at a desk, liable to discharge any moment by his imperious master, he is yet a “climber” in New York society, and even in a business conversation can not refrain from mentioning the names of certain famous leaders, hinting that they are his intimate friends. Yet at the time of the Algeciras conference, he lamented at great length in print, that we were to be represented by a “snob” like our Ambassador to Italy, as Mr. White then was, instead of being grateful that the President had appointed a gentleman, as well as an experienced Diplomatist. His own attack reeked of snobbery, for had he felt conscious that he was in the same class as its object, irreproachably born and bred, it would never have occurred to him to make it. He put himself in the class of the Americans who storm the Embassy in London, asking to be escorted to Henley, or given tickets for Royal functions, and, when politely steered to the door, anathematize the patient envoy as a “snob,” and: “no American.” 

None of our fellow countrymen has ever held (not occupied temporarily) the distinguished position in English society that the Whites have held for the last quarter of a century. And instead of this being a matter of reproach, as certain of our newspapers would have us believe, we should congratulate ourselves that there is at least one small class of foreigners who, coming in contact with few Americans, assume that we are a well bred nation. Mr. White, having been born at the top, has never lost his head, as many of our Ambassadors have done when suddenly privileged to entertain royalty and hobnob with the bearers of titles they, had hardly heard pronounced until coached by their secretaries. I do not believe that the most ingenuous of these gentlemen has ever intentionally snubbed an American who approached him properly. Not only would such an indulgence be unwise from the politicians’ standpoint, but most of them are good Americans at heart and quite ready to do their duty by their fellow citizens. – Gertrude Atherton, 1909

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

Etiquette and “Snobbery”

The word “Snob” crept gradually into vogue in England among the gentry, as a recognized, but permitted, slang word for a low-born, vulgar, “base mechanical” person.Thackeray applied the word to all vulgarly, pretentious persons, however high their rank or large their wealth; and this sort of snob, he said, was scattered freely through all classes of society in all countries.  

The Word "Snob"— Of words which have two clearly distinct senses in both countries, the commonly used, but yet slangish and not very pleasant, “snob” is an example. Snob crept gradually into vogue in England among the gentry, as a recognized, but permitted, slang word for a low-born, vulgar, “base mechanical” person. This sense it retained, exclusively I believe, until the appearance in Punch of Thackeray's Snob Papers, before which time it was not used and was almost unknown in this country. 

In those humorous and savagely satirical papers, Thackeray applied the word to all vulgarly, pretentious persons, however high their rank or large their wealth; and this sort of snob, he said, was scattered freely through all classes of society in all countries. “There are snobs in China,” he remarked. Had he seen Dickens’ book-plate with its crest, knowing Dickens’ origin and early habits of life, he would have called that snobbish. In this sense, the word came rapidly into vogue in the United States. Here it has, in New York at least, been subjected to yet another modification in certain circles, where it is used to mean a person who somewhat pretentiously affects the society of persons condition and wealth. – Richard Grant White in Atlantic, 1879

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

Etiquette and Wealth

By the 1890s, the center of fashionable Newport, and its famous 400, was Ochre Point, Ocean Drive and out Bellevue Avenue, where the nouveaux riche were all building their “palaces.” –Good manners are not the exclusive property of the wealthy. Good manners do not discriminate between the “haves” and the “have nots.” This gent was actually lamenting the stilted snobbery, not the actual etiquette of the wealthy.

Wealth vs. Happiness

A Millionaire  Sighs for Freedom From Conventionalities

“I never realized more forcibly that wealth does not bring happiness than one day at Newport,” said Austin Corbin, the millionaire banker and President of the Reading Railroad. “I had been moving along the fashionable drives scanning the faces of the passers-by. All were evidently bored to death. The ladies, arrayed in richest carriage toilets, seemed afraid to move lest they should disarrange their apparel. Not a ripple of laughter did I hear. All seemed to have arrayed themselves in their best and gone out to drive because it was a duty they owed to their social position to be seen among the other fashionables. Everybody's spirits seemed completely bowed down beneath the weight of fashion, decorum and etiquette, so inseparable from wealth. 

“Leaving the four hundred element I drove to an unfashionable and remote part of the beach. There in an eligible-situation, at just the right distance from the water for enjoyment, I saw a neat cottage adorned with the legend, ‘Mrs. O'Donnelly's ladies’ and gents’ boarding-house. Terms, $6 per week.’ A number of athletic young men and a bevy of buxom, rosy cheeked young girls were congregated on the porch and lawn. What a contrast the charmingly, healthful and natural appearance of these young people to that of the blighted, artificial victims of fashion I had just left. They were all in negligee costume, and merriment, playfulness and health sparkled in every eye and rang out heartily from every lip. „ “‘Oh.’ I thought, “if I could only escape from the fashionable prison, called a hotel by courtesy, where I am confined, with what inexpressible joy I would board at Mrs. O'Donnelly's.’”—Pittsburg. Dispatch, 1891

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

Etiquette and Hypocrisy

Manners are more than just knowing the rules. It is living them that counts. Pictured above — Dinner from the movie Titanic with a group of supposed ladies and gentlemen. Yet few at this table in the movie, have really earned the titles, or live up to them, in their truest forms. 

Of Methods and Manners

Different persons have entirely different opinions in regard to taste and etiquette. Some are stricklers for certain manifestations, of good breeding, while others lay stress upon other and quite dissimilar rules of behavior. For instance: 

• There are men who would be ashamed to eat with their knives, even in private, but who will talk at the top of their voices in the public reading-room.
• And men who, though they would scorn to remain seated in a horse car while a pretty girl is standing, will throw a banana skin on the sidewalk, regardless of the inevitable consequence. 
• And women who are scrupulously neat as to hands and fingers, but who will, nevertheless, persist in wearing the biggest hat at the theater that they can possibly get hold of. 
• And women who sing like seraphs, and yet will they keep the rear window wide open, though they know that it means pneumonia to one-half of their fellow passengers, and catarrh and sore throat to the other half. 
• And men who never forget to lift their hats to a lady, but who cannot be trusted with impunity for a dollar. 
• And women who would die rather than eat their soup from the end of their spoon, but who will lie like Ananias upon the slightest provocation.
• And women whose conversation is a liberal education and perennial delight to the listener, and yet their hair presents firstclass presumptive evidence that it hasn't had the acquaintance with comb and brush for a month, at least.  
• And men who are scrupulously careful to give a lady the inside of the walk, and yet think nothing of calling upon you at your busiest hour and boring you until you until you wish you were dead. 
• And boys who never forget to say "Yes, sir," and "Yes, ma'am," but who are taken with sudden sickness the moment they are asked to do an errand for their mothers. 
• And girls who do not have to be coaxed to play upon the piano before company, but who will turn around and giggle when a strange man makes remarks about them in the street. 
• And men who would not clean their nails in public, but who will shove a pewter quarter on to a blind man about them in the street. 
• And men who would never interrupt another while he is speaking, but who will advise their best friend to invest in a worthless stock, simply because they have some of that slock which they wish to dispose of. 
• And men who are too polite to look over your shoulder when you are writing, who think nothing of registering false oaths at the Custom-house almost daily. 

Many more instances might be adduced, but the above will suffice to show that we do not all think alike upon these little matters of etiquette. — Boston Transcript, 1885

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

Etiquette and Popularity

“As a rule, the unpopularity of women is a verdict pronounced upon them by their own sex.” – A full purse never made one popular, or acceptable, by some women. But neither did a family name, or snobbery for that matter.

The Woman Who Is A Favorite with Everybody In Their Social World 

What is the secret of being "a popular woman," as the phrase is understood in society? There are some women who are extremely popular with their own sex, who have many women friends, but who are not popular with the opposite sex. Again, there are many women who are most popular with men, but who are unpopular with women, and are undeniably bored if thrown much in their company. As a rule, the unpopularity of women is a verdict pronounced upon them by their own sex.


Men proverbially make the best of women; if there is anything pleasant to be said about them they say it, and "a handful of good looks" weighs greatly in a woman's favor from a man's point of view. A woman must be very stupid, dull, disagreeable and plain before a man will boldly confess that "he can't get on with her."


Unpopularity is derived from various sources. A woman may be piquaute, pretty and pleasant; she may live in good style and do all that fashionable women do in the way of society engagements, and yet be extremely unpopular with both men and women. Her women friends are afraid of her, and her men friends never feel sure of her because her perceptions of the foibles and weaknesses of her friends are so keen and so little tempered by genuine good nature that no one escapes from the sting made by her apparently innocent remarks.


Another type of the unpopular woman is the one with a chilling manner and 'standoffish' demeanor, who, when she would thaw, cannot do so with any graciousness; though really kind hearted and duty loving, she is as unpopular in society as a woman can well be.


A brusque manner renders a woman unpopular until her friends know her well; but acquaintances seldom get as far as this; therefore to the end of the chapter she remains the brusque, unpopular woman still. Egotism is a formidable barrier to popularity. Women of this type are agreeable only so far as the topics of conversation concern themselves, their aims, interests, amusements, etc...


Popularity is a like diversity with unpopularity. Some women are immensely popular because they are what is termed "good company;" they have high spirits, they are witty and full of good natured repartee, they provoke geniality by their natural vivacity, that this is a popularity not to be acquired, being the outcome of a gift.


A woman can never be thoroughly popular unless, added to favorable position, she has an innate sweet disposition, is considerate, winning of speech and manner and has the gift of saying at all times the thing that will give the most pleasure. When a clever woman is also a truly kindly one she is liked by all classes and is foremost among popular women. – Los Angeles Herald, 1891

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