Good Manners Keeps Friends

Pull yourself together, Sue! Charlie’s only removing an olive pit from his mouth.

Bad Table Etiquette Offends New Friends

Pull yourself together, Sue! Charlie’s only removing an olive pit from his mouth!

He thinks he’s especially polite, poor boy, to use that big dinner napkin as a barricade. But etiquette says, simply cover your mouth with a cupped hand and inconspicuously drop an olive pit, a fish bone or a fruit stone into it.

Don't let old-fashioned table superstitions ruin dinner dates for you. Remember unobtrusive manners are smartest. 

And take these tips:

• Table manners can make or break you socially.
• Never unfold your napkin entirely, unless it’s tea size. 
• When you use your napkin, lift only a corner to your mouth.
• If you’re dancing between courses, drop your napkin on your chair– not on the table.
• At a properly set table, begin with the silver farthest from your plate and continue in the order in which the pieces are placed.

— From the Santa Ana Journal, November 1937

 

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

Gilded Age Lawn Party Etiquette Humor

“In the matter of the cherries he was especially troubled, as he did not in the least know what was the proper method of disposing of the stones when once the fruit had passed his lips.”
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The etiquette rule for fruit stones and pits is this: Anything that goes in to one’s mouth with the fingers is removed politely from the mouth with the fingers  –Gilded Age diminutive cherry forks with gilded tines 

Far as He Could Go

The drummer was bidden to that festivity known as a “lawn party,” and among the refreshments provided upon that festive occasion were some cherries. The drummer was conscious that there were depths of social etiquette which he had never been able to sound, and as he was after all a fellow of sense, with the American adaptability, and did not wish to do that which was not according to the best usage, he bethought him that it were well to watch those about him with a view to getting clews (sic). 

In the matter of the cherries he was especially troubled, as he did not in the least know what was the proper method of disposing of the stones when once the fruit had passed his lips. He decided, therefore, that before he attempted to eat any of the luscious looking fruit he would wait and see what his young and beautiful hostess did in this delicate matter. 

“I watched her,” he goes on to say, “and soon had the pleasure of seeing her slip a cherry between her lips, redder than the fruit itself. I took up one from my own plate, preparing to eat it as soon as I saw how she disposed of the stone, but when she took the stone between her fingers and snapped it at her grandmother, I found myself quite as much at a loss as before– for you see, I had no grandmother there.” – Boston Courier, 1891

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