Miss Manners Rescues Civilization

“The tiniest custom may offer a glimpse into how a mannerly concept, such as fairness, has been translated into behavior,” she writes. “Tradition is what gives a society meaning and the rules by which it lives are what make it work.” — Miss Manners

Handling More Than Mere Manners 

From Sexual Harassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing : and Other Lapses in Civility by Judith Martin

A Book Review

“Miss Manners insists on the E-word,” writes Judith Martin in “Miss Manners Rescues Civilization,” the latest in her long-running series of lighthearted lessons in behaving well in our benighted world.

The “E-word,” of course, is etiquette, and etiquette has long been a highly lucrative enterprise for Martin. Why, she has even registered “Miss Manners” as a trademark, and a federal trademark symbol is neatly affixed to the famous name on the cover of her book.

Still, Martin’s seriocomic approach to good manners conceals an earnest interest in what defines and preserves a civilization against decadence and decline. Much of what Martin writes is actually a kind of study in cultural anthropology, even if she dresses up her field notes with artful parody and self-deprecating humor.

“The tiniest custom may offer a glimpse into how a mannerly concept, such as fairness, has been translated into behavior,” she writes. “Tradition is what gives a society meaning and the rules by which it lives are what make it work.”

As she sets up and knocks down straw men, debating with carping letter-writers and always getting in the last word, we realize that Martin is passionately interested in the weightiest and most urgent issues in our troubled world— class hatred, senseless acts of violence, the struggle for social justice, the search for enlightenment and fulfillment. In that sense, the title of her book (like the book itself) only appears to be satirical.

So Martin ponders when it is appropriate to wear hats or white shoes or black tie; she pontificates on the correct way to address a former president; she protests against putting on make-up in public. But she also makes a convincing case for the proposition that good manners can be a matter of life and death.

“Miss Manners may be used to a certain loneliness in her devotion to etiquette as the basic force of civilization, but when a disaster occurs, she has plenty of company,” writes Martin. “After the bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City, large and small acts of consideration, thoughtfulness and kindness abounded.”

Indeed, there is literally no arena of moral controversy into which she hesitates to wander, no form of human encounter too bizarre to baffle her sense of right and wrong. Miss Manners instructs a ninth-grader on how to conduct a decorous argument on the subject of abortion; she counsels a woman whose waist-length hair attracts fondling by strangers to call the cops; she opines on the proper degree of decorum in dealing with a former neighbor who once molested a reader’s daughter.

Here and there, Martin bulks up her book with questions so dunderheaded and answers so predictable that one suspects she is simply running out of material for yet another book. “Is it ever appropriate to give one the finger?” one reader asks in apparent innocence. “Certainly not,” says the unflappable Miss Manners, surprising no one at all.

More often, though, Miss Manners finds herself drawn into the role of defining, rather than reporting on, the fast-changing standards of etiquette, a role she clearly savors and performs especially well. After all, what does the traditional rule of etiquette tell us about how to deal with a neighbor who watches pornographic movies with the window blinds wide open, or the mourner who brings his video cam to a funeral?

“It seems to Miss Manners that you are showing far too much interest in the nature of your neighbor’s habits,” Miss Manners scolds one reader, and the other reader she comforts: “To film weeping mourners is an appalling intrusion on their privacy.”

Behind the mask of Miss Manners lurks a subtle parodist named Judith Martin, and deep inside Judith Martin beats the heart of a an authentic visionary who is enraptured by the prospect of a world characterized by social equality and social justice. The fact that she uses the “E-word” to characterize her faintly utopian vision— and the fact that she uses such sly good humor in describing it— makes the whole enterprise no less stirring. — By Jonathan Kirsch, Special to the Times, 1996

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

Server Theatrics? Or Better Service?

Judith Martin (aka Miss Manners) is one of my favorite writers of etiquette. Witty and knowledgeable, her answers are pure gold and sometimes hilariously funny. But Etiquipedia wonders if she was ever employed in the restaurant industry. If she had been, perhaps this answer wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting, nor as funny. Having been a manager many years ago, in a very popular Newport Beach restaurant, Etiquipedia knows that kneeling down to a table was not a common servers’ trick to get a higher tip back in the day. It was, oftentimes, to hear the patrons’ orders more clearly. When a server is standing in a very noisy establishment, possibly with their ears a few feet from customers’ voices, it’s very difficult to hear the food orders being placed. Even when it was quiet in the restaurant, many diners have a bad habit of looking down at their menus while reading from them and placing their orders. Kneeling down was one way to put the servers’ ears closer to the customers’ voices. This is something I have taught in my youth advanced classes for 36 years: Look up and directly at servers’ faces when ordering from them. Timid voices of young people often don’t carry in loud restaurant settings. Those voices don’t reach the servers’ ears.”

Kneeling shouldn't earn waiter extra tip according to Miss Manners… 

Etiquipedia however wonders, should it?

Dear Miss Manners: I have noticed some very strange behavior in several nice restaurants. “Servers” (no longer called waiters) getting down on their knees or squatting to take my order. These servers are young, but still! My friend asked one why, and he replied that he was tired. I asked another, and he replied that he didn't like to exhibit physical dominance over customers. It is all rather startling. Is this a new custom in the making?

Gentle Reader: New? Miss Manners assures you that this is an Elizabethan custom. Those who served the Lord of the castle and his most honored guests, did so from a kneeling position. They were called “servers” or “sewers.”

You have probably wandered into an Elizabethan restaurant, or posibly a time warp. Do the servers kiss your napkin, as well as taste your food, to make sure that it is not poisoned? You might test Miss Manners’ theory by calling “Sewer!” to see if one responds, or by throwing the bones on the floor to see if this is the approved way of busing one’s plate.

No, wait. If this posture has to do with the new claim that people tip more to servers who hover below them, rather than above them, Miss Manners’ tests would probably not be a good idea. Neither, in that case, would be increased tipping, which would only encourage this silliness. —By Miss Manners, Press Democrat, 1996

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

Etiquette for Condoms and STDs

Since the dawn of time, human relationships of a physical nature could be complex. Adding to that complexity throughout time, have been sexually transmitted diseases. Etiquette is necessary when it comes to this particular subject, as these issues must be discussed in order to keep oneself safe and healthy. 

A Touchy Subject from a 1990’s Survey of Four Etiquette Authorities

How do you ask a man to wear a condom?

Letitia Baldridge: You can say to him, “I’m very sorry, but if you don’t use a condom, there’s just no way we can be together.” You can then give him some, or tell him where the nearest drugstore is, or tell him, “Let’s have dinner another night,” and send him away.

Judith Martin: If you know the person well enough to make that necessary, you ought to be able to say anything. What amuses me is when people shift into prudery. If you are on intimate terms with somebody, surely you can ask them intimate questions.

Charlotte Ford: I’d be a little bit embarrassed and a little bit shy and say, “Listen, I hope you’ve taken some sort of protection because I don’t want to contract any diseases, and I’m sure you don’t either.”

Sydney Biddle Barrows: It is not seemly, nor necessary, to smile on the first date and say, “Love your dress. By the way, will you be giving me a fatal disease?” Instead, allow time to pass - that’s what these dates are for, after all. By the time sex seems a possibility, you will have necessarily both crossed that line beyond which these sensitive issues may be discussed.

If you’re giving a dinner party and invite someone who has AIDS, should you tell your other guests?

Letitia Baldridge: I don’t think you tell anybody that the person has AIDS. Because frankly the guests are not catching AIDS from that person. It really isn’t relevant.

Judith Martin: It depends on the activity of the dinner party. At most respectable dinner parties, there wouldn’t be any activity where you would catch AIDS, so I don’t see why should have to tell people. Would you tell your guests that one of them had cancer? But if you were giving an orgy, I think you should tell people.

Charlotte Ford: I don’t know that I would invite somebody to dinner knowing they have AIDS, simply because I think it would make everybody very uncomfortable. But I think it all depends on the situation. If you are going to do that, I think you have to be very careful how you do it and whom you invite.

Sydney Biddle Barrows: Yes. Most people will know that they cannot contract the disease by being seated at a dinner table with a carrier. But it is a courtesy to all to let them know ahead of time.

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

Etiquette for Cake with Ice Cream

A new twist on ice cream and cake puts ice cream in the cones and places decorated cupcakes atop them. One can eat these by holding them in one hand and starting from the top. Or one can serve them placed on their sides on plates for eating with a fork and a spoon. The ice cream cone is delicate enough to easily break and eat with a fork. The crunchiness adds a fun texture to the cake and ice cream mix!

How to Eat Ice Cream with Cake Properly

DEAR MISS MANNERS - What is the proper way to serve ice cream and cake? I have seen it served in the following ways:
• Together on a crystal dessert plate.
• Ice cream in a goblet on dessert plate, cake on same plate.
• Ice cream in goblet without plate, cake on separate plate.
• Ice cream in dessert bowl, cake on separate plate.
• Together in soup bowl.

If they are served in the same dish, does one eat the cake with a spoon?

Should the ice cream be served first and the cake distributed after all the ice cream has been served?

Or should a slice of cake be added by the host before serving to the guest?

GENTLE READER - This is one of the few matters of table etiquette (milk is another) in which the key factor is the age of the guests.

People of all ages know that ice cream and cake is best eaten by mashing the ice cream down into the cake with the back end of a spoon, preferably while chanting rhythmically but tunelessly to oneself. But only people under the age of 5 can get away with it, and then only when Miss Manners isn't looking.

In order to allow adults to simulate this enjoyment, which is to say to eat ice-cream-and-cake rather than two separate desserts, the items are put on a plate together, with the ice cream on top of the slice of cake or, more dangerously for the tablecloth, off to one side.

The adults are issued both dessert spoons and forks. They may alternate using these, eating the ice cream with the spoon and the cake with the fork, or may keep the fork in the left hand and use it to push ice cream-soaked cake into the spoon, which is held in the right hand. They are not allowed to hum. — By Miss Manners, aka Judith Martin, 1987

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

From “Puncheries” to Punch Ladles

A reproduction Monteith punch bowl. ~ “Monteith,” according to Judith Martin, “was a Scot who made great punch and wore a scallop-bottomed coat. His name adorns a punch bowl with a scalloped edge on which you can hang the punch glasses to chill on ice before you make the punch.”

Punch-Bowls: Punch bowls of silver are to be noted in most important plate inventories from 1670 until 1820. They were costly to make, the wide-mouthed bowl, measuring 11 to 21 inches in diameter, being raised from a flat disc of silver plate. Three twelve-inch examples struck with the London hallmark for 1666 are in the plate collection of the Skinners' Company.

Early punch bowls followed the pattern of oriental porcelain bowls, being very shallow and very open. Heavy plate was used and the body was more or less a section of a sphere with a plain smooth surface inside and out, not even the rim having any moulding to strengthen it, and was supported on a low, plainly moulded collar foot-ring. In the larger sizes, holding as much as four gallons, the design included two ring handles on the body. The only decoration until about 1715 was an engraved coat of arms or a crest enclosed in a wide border composed of scrells, foliage, flowers and other fashionable motifs. By the end of the seventeenth century it was customary for the rim to be strengthened with a narrow, light rim-moulding, or with a gadrooned or rope pattern edge.

Queen Anne punch bowls introduced a slight elaboration in form: the bowl opening was less expansive than before, and below the rim might be embossed a wide border of vine leaves and fruit, or other ornament. The moulding of the foot-ring was slightly deeper than during the previous century.

Although a considerable number of Georgian punch bowls appear to have been plain-surfaced others were embossed with fluting, which might be wide or narrow, flat-faced or rounded. Melon-shaped flutes are also found, narrow at the base, rising with a right-hand twist and broadening at the rim. Alternate flutes might be heavily embossed with leaf and floral designs. From about 1730 a short spool-shaped stem was placed between foot-ring and bowl, thus lifting the bowl higher from the table. This stem became deeper as the century advanced and the lower ring might be gadrooned. 

The bowl rim from about 1730 was slightly incurved, still strengthened by decorative moulding and sometimes with a wide encircling border of chasing or engraving immediately below. This design, with embossed and chased ornament from the rococo to the classic style and back again to the nineteenth century, is characteristic of Georgian punch bowls until 1830. From about 1790 hot punch became fashionable and the punch bowl might be accompanied by a plain circular tray upon which it stood when in use.

Punch-Ladles: Punch drinking so captured the imagination and palate of Georgian society that puncheries were established in their homes, forerunners of the modern cocktail bar. The Georgian punchery was magnificent with its display of colorful punch-bowls, glittering flint-glass goblets, silver spice-dredgers and sugar-bowls, bottles hung with enameled labels naming the numerous liquors from which modish punches were built, and long-handled punch-ladles.

Today, punch-ladles in their changing styles, demonstrating the eye for design and pride in good craftsmanship of the English silversmith, offer interesting possibilities to the small collector. – From Bernard and Therle Hughes”, “Three Centuries of English Domestic Service,” 1952

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

Etiquette and Unsolicited Advice

 

Vintage etiquette advice from Miss Manners in the 1990’s, that still holds true today.

Judith Martin, who writes the syndicated “Miss Manners” column, said: “The first rule of giving advice is you only give it when it's sought. It's rude to go around giving advice to people who haven't asked for it. And it's futile, too, because they won't take it. It's more than a rule of etiquette. It's a rule of practicality.”– Santa Cruz Sentinel, 1992

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

Using Napkins and Napkin Rings

It seems that Miss Manners “has survived into a world where people believe that napkin rings are useless but decorative items to be put out on the company table. Of course there are always fresh napkins out for company, which is why napkin rings were strictly an informal, family device that would be considered ludicrous at a dinner party.” — 

A little over 100 years earlier from when this article was written, a gilded age design for a combination napkin ring, menu holder and bud vase was patented.

— Photo source, Etiquipedia library

The Finer Points of Correct Manners 

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Qualms were a sensation unknown to Miss Manners. If you invariably do everything right, there is never any occasion for that sudden "whoops" that starts a downhill slide of misgivings.

So it was rather a shock for Miss Manners to experience a slight semblance of this feeling in regard to, of all things, a dinner-table practice. Miss Manners' dinner table is not, as you can imagine, lax. But twice in a week, different people had expressed shock upon discovering that at the Miss Manners family dinner table, napkin rings are used in the traditional way. That is to say, each member of the family has a different napkin ring (in this case, the designs are different, but it is also customary to have similar rings with identifying names or initials), replaces it on the napkin after a meal, and thus is able to receive the same napkin for use at the next meal.

"Do you mean to say," each of her interlocutors had asked with widened eyes and mouths, "that you don't have fresh napkins at every meal?"

Well, yes, that is what Miss Manners had meant, if not what she had necessarily meant to blab. Just as ordinary households have the sheets and towels changed once a week (not twice a day, as fastidious tycoons with full-time laundresses are said to demand, since tycoons require afternoon naps on fresh sheets to soften the stress of all that money), ordinary households have the napkins changed every few days, barring accidents or finger-food orgies.

Or so Miss Manners had thought. It was the expressions of surprise that prompted her qualms. Are other people doing a load of napkins every day, one for each meal that each member of the family takes at home?

Since Miss Manners agrees that in an ideal world there would be no recycling of used napkins, ought she to be spending her time attending to the home question rather than the world's etiquette problems?

Not really. The world of etiquette is not unfamiliar with compromise and trade-offs, and Miss Manners can live with recycled napkins in order to have time for doing other things, and in order not to create a water shortage.

It was only later that Miss Manners discovered the real meaning of those questions.

It seems that she has survived into a world where people believe that napkin rings are useless but decorative items to be put out on the company table.

Of course there are always fresh napkins out for company, which is why napkin rings were strictly an informal, family device that would be considered ludicrous at a dinner party.

But it seems that there are also now fresh napkins out for each family meal - not because household laundry has increased, but because "napkin" has come to mean something made out of paper. Cloth napkins are thought to be too much trouble in a busy modern household.

Miss Manners urges a revival of the daily use of cloth napkins, along with the labor-saving napkin rings. Contrary to anti-etiquette propaganda, various prematurely abandoned tableware devices were not invented in order to put sensible people to unnecessary expense and trouble. On the contrary.

For example, finger bowls have survived only where they are least needed - at formal dinners, where there is little likelihood of finger food being served.

The effete versions on doilies, with floating rose petal, to be put to one side untouched by the diner, disguise the fact that finger bowls properly serve the purpose of a moist towelette in a package.

Salad knives have pretty much passed out of use (but not at Miss Manners' table), but it continues to be impossible to cut a wedge of lettuce or tomato with the side of a fork.

In regard to napkin-ring usage, Miss Manners has been asked whether it isn't disgusting to reuse a napkin. Not if you also use another quaint old tradition that has also fallen into disuse. Table manners.— By Judith Martin, Miss Manners, 1989

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

Don’t Argue with Miss Manners

It’s not true that “high tea” is a fancy little British business, featuring witty people eating cucumber sandwiches and tiny cakes. No, no. no! That is just called tea. The “high” doesn’t make it fancier. Quite the opposite. High tea features potted meat and soft-cooked eggs, and is what you have when you don't want to bother with a real dinner. 

Your etiquette blunders are upsetting Miss Manners!

Why don’t people pay strict attention to Miss Manners instead of trying to argue with her? There is a body of etiquette beliefs, firmly held in this society that is wrong, wrong, wrong. If you only knew how weary Miss Manners gets of repeating the same things, in a never-ending crusade to separate gentle people from this misinformation, you would use your energy to fetch her a cool drink, instead. 

Here, for positively (or possibly) the last time, is a list of common errors. It's not true: 

That spaghetti properly is eaten by twirling the strands on a fork held in the one hand, into the bowl of a large spoon held in the other hand; that this method, if not correct here, is at least dashingly continental. No, no, no! Here and in Italy, this is peasant or family manners (like eating chicken from the fingers) and not proper table manners under remotely formal circumstance.

That a bride in a white dress is either a virgin, or a brazen hussy, trying to pass herself off as one, when everyone in town knows better. No. no, no. The white wedding dress symbolize a first marriage, not a first consummation later in the day’s schedule, after all the guests have gone home. 

That dessert is correctly eaten with a teaspoon. No, no, no. Teaspoons are for stirring tea, and a dessert spoon is a larger oval spoon. Miss Manners blames the manufacturer of silverware, with their “basic place settings” of dinner fork, knife and teaspoon, for this one. Fork, knife and dessert spoon would be much more basic, as the large oval spoon can also pass itself off as a soup spoon. 

That “high tea” is a fancy little British business, featuring witty people eating cucumber sandwiches and tiny cakes. No, no. no. That is just called tea. The “high” doesn’t make it fancier. Quite the opposite. High tea features potted meat and soft-cooked eggs, and is what you have when you don't want to bother with a real dinner. 

That Miss Manners is willing to debate these matters further. — Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, 1984

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

Saratoga Chip Etiquette

Two antique “Saratoga Chip” servers in sterling silver. The gilding on the top server protects the silver from the salt — “Saratoga Springs, the most famous American resort of the Nineteenth Century, was the birthplace of Saratoga Potato Chips. These delicacies were first served in one of Saratoga’s fashionable hotels. The delicious golden brown chips so delighted the diners that they took the chips with them to the Saratoga Races. From there these crip, irresistible tidbits became world famous. Today you’ll find that potato chips add to the enjoyment of any summer outing, stay-at-home picnic or cocktail party.” — Mill Valley Record, 1946

What is it about Saratoga or Potato Chips? Perfect For Picnics and for Etiquette Humor in the 19th and 20th Centuries!

Etiquette : A Metropolitan Society Expert Offers Some Original Suggestions

Q. (1) How should Saratoga chips be eaten? Is it proper to use your hands in conveying them to the mouth?
(2) How should a hot baked potato be handled? 

A. (1) The Saratoga chip should be conveyed to the mouth with a monkey-wrench; the one from your bicycle tool-bag may suffice. Once landed, it is eaten by opening and closing your mouth to the music of a Hungarian orchestra.
(2) The hot baked potato should be handled with boxing gloves. —San Jose Mercury News, 1898

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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, c.1997

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

Profiles in Etiquette – Judith Martin

As the daughter of a United Nations diplomat, Martin early on acquired a working knowledge of proper social etiquette. “After you've entertained Mrs. So-and-so who doesn’t speak anything but Flemish, life holds no fear,” she says with a light. She also became fascinated by historical etiquette. “I quickly learned that if you wanted to learn what a given society was doing at a given time, you looked at their etiquette books, and what they were being told not to do, they were doing. That's how this little hobby got started.” 

Gentle Readers: meet Judith Martin, columnist Miss Manners

My. My. Miss Manners is prolific isn’t she? Barely has the dust settled from the rollicking entrant of 1st etiquette epistle, “Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior.” then we are inundated by 389 paces of “Miss Manners’ Guide to Rearing Perfect Children.” Oh, indeed. One can almost feel ones metaphorical knuckles being rapped. Not for falling to use ones fish fork correctly that was discussed previously but for violating the rules of the baby-sitting co-op. Or commiting faux pas at parent-teacher conferences. The list might be endless. Or at least worth 389 pages. 

Gentle Reader, as Miss Manners herself is wont to say, press on. For this tome on decorum that is receiving all sorts of highly favorable book reviews has as its core nothing less than the “passing on of civilization” as we know it. Or at least as we knew it prior to the 60s, a decade that, according to Miss Manners, was “without rules.” As a tonic to the aforementioned plight, Miss Manners, who in real life is the syndicated columnist and novelist Judith Martin, offers her “primer for everyone worried about the future of civilization.” What this heir apparent to the etiquette doyennes Emily Post and Amy Vanderbilt proffers, is highly practical but spirited counsel, on modern-day manners and morals common to that process known as child-rearing. Wit is arguably one of Martin's strong suits, as is her no-nonsense advice.

“The baby doesn't think. ‘Well I'm hungry, but if I wait few hours they'll be less reluctant to get up’,” Martin says, looking very proper during a recent interview in her high-necked blouse and antique garnet earrings. “It's very hard to teach a child to let somebody play with his toys or to wait. But that's what civilization is all about, and you have to start very young.” Talking with Martin is no schmoot over the bark fence. Just as she crisply stated her intent in her book: “A good parent owes it to a child to teach manners as an interesting and useful skill, and not a a subject that is invoked to condemn whatever the child happens to be doing when the adult is feeling irritable.” So does she mince no words in person. “Things were in a rock-bottom state when I first went into the etiquette trade six years ago,” she says, sounding not unlike a modern Mary Poppins, “but now there is a realization that you don't have to live in a world where everyone is rude.” 

In waging her genteel war on rudeness which by the way, does not permit “being ruder back” Martin has modeled her second etiquette book on her column format: a brief commentary on a particular social breach followed by answers from “Miss Manners” to the “Gentle Reader,” one of 200 letters she receives weekly. Interspersed with her advice on the etiquette of braces, car pools, and the like, Martin tosses in counsel that will warm parents’ hearts everywhere: “The chief tools of childrearing are nagging and example.” “Lecturing, in Miss Manners’ opinion, is one of the rewards of child-rearing...” However, lest anyone think the author is one-sided, Martin throws out some for the children who may be listening: “Properly done, a sulk is wildly irritating to the parent ... the ideal revenge of a theoretically powerless person on a supposedly powerful one.” 

It hardly need be said that Martin, herself the mother of “two perfect children” well, that's how the book jacket reads, politely snorts at the “JeanJacques Rousseau school of etiquette,” the belief that natural behavior is beautiful and that civilization, including manners, spoils man's essential goodness. Unfortunately , those who pay the price for believing such nonsense, says Martin, are those children now in their late teens and early 20s who “were told that etiquette is outdated and you just do whatever you feel like. Well, these people have grown up and discover that it's not true, and they’re at a terrible handicap.” Job interviews, romances, all are in jeopardy, says Martin, when one is bereft of a general system of etiquette. 

As the daughter of a United Nations diplomat, Martin early on acquired a working knowledge of proper social etiquette. “After you've entertained Mrs. So-and-so who doesn't speak anything but Flemish, life holds no fear,” she says with a light. She also became fascinated by historical etiquette. “I quickly learned that if you wanted to learn what a given society was doing at a given time, you looked at their etiquette books, and what they were being told not to do, they were doing. That's how this little hobby got started.” 

But it wasn't until the end of her 25year career as a feature writer and sometime theater critic at the Washington Post, where she covered “everything it’s possible to write about in a newspaper except news.” that Martin broke into the etiquette business in earnest Her thrice-weekly column, “Miss Manners,” began in 1978 and is now syndicated across the country. With women’s growing presence in the workforce, Martin says, additional etiquette questions are being raised today. “In business, etiquette is based on rank not gender,” she says crisply. She also predicts that our social etiquette system based on gender will yield to one based on age. “What I would like to do is speed along the structure of American society and the working world so that people can have a decent life that is a mixture of the domestic and the career life.” Does Martin consider herself pivotal in promoting that change? “Well, I don't want to be immodest, but I'm trying my best.” – Hillary DeVries for Christian Science Monitor, 1984

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

Silverware and Forked Answers

An unusual and highly valuable, antique silver, fish-shaped, Victorian spoon warmer. These were used in very large, drafty estates, to keep the spoons from “downstairs” warm for the meals served “upstairs.” –  “It was here that for the first and last time in his life Mr. Campion made the acquaintance of those silver-plated cornucopias which, in Victorian times, were supplied to the diner filled with hot water, so that he might warm his spoon before partaking of that greasy delicacy called thick soup.” –Marjorie Allingham

Silverware Provides Golden Opportunity for Forked Answers

The secret vice of etiquette is to play guessing games with old pieces of silver. The stranger looking an object say, a combination of writhing bodies with spouts, or tongs and clawed footsies the more fun it is to ask, “And what do you suppose THAT is?” Then, again, perhaps this vice is not entirely secret. Miss Manners has noticed that people who fail to acknowledge the daily toils of etiquette as it strives to make the world bearable in small ways, believe its only function is in connection with peculiar silver. Under etiquette's kindly veneer, they seem to believe, it is really only a system by which people who have the time and money to waste in acquiring funny silverware, endeavor to make those who don't, feel inadequate. 

The object such detractors choose to bolster their slander is usually the humble fork. “I never know what fork to use,” they will brag, as evidence that they are above snobbish games. The fact that the fork is a household mainstay at all levels of society, the use of which can be, and routinely is, mastered by a child of 3, makes it a strange example. Therefore, Miss Manners will now offer some better ones. In the spirit of the parent who says, “Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about,” she suggests that the next time they complain about esoteric items of silver, they choose an example among the following items. Miss Manners has helpfully divided these into two categories and supplied some dubious etymology. 

A. What in the Heck Is That? 

1. Bougie box. This is where you keep your bougie, of course. A bougie is a coil of bleached wax, named after the Algerian town that supplied it, and it sticks out in a taper through the lid of your small, circular bougie box to provide a dim light for whatever dim activities you may wish to engage in. If you don't mind your bougie being uncovered, you can hang it on a wax jack, but it is well known that bougie boxes keep the mice from nibbling your tapers.
2. Monteith. Monteith was a Scot who made great punch and wore a scallop-bottomed coat. His name adorns a punch bowl with a scalloped edge on which you can hang the punch glasses to chill on ice before you make the punch.
3. Argyle. Either the fourth or the fifth Duke of Argyle, depending on whom you believe (Miss Manners doesn't vouch for any of this information), invented his own gravy boat, which has a hot-water compartment for keeping the gravy hot. 
4. Posset or caudle cup. This is a two-handled cup in which you can drink posset (curdled milk with wine or ale, oat cakes and spices) or caudle (wine with spices and sugar and crumbled bread) or, if those lists of ingredients get to you, grab both handles and be sick.  

B. Any Fool Can Understand What It Is, But What Do You Need It For?  

1. Wine wagon. This is a great toy, consisting of a little wheeled wagon that holds two wine bottles, so that you can send it careening down the length of the table at exactly the point when someone with sense ought to remove it and you from the table.
2. Sardine box. Why would you want to keep your sardines in a silver box with pictures of sardines engraved on it, when you can pack them into a can like people on a subway? Because sardines were once very expensive. 
3. Tea caddy. Ditto for tea, which is why lots of tea caddies have locks on them. 
4. Cheese toaster. If you think it's messy to make your toasted cheese sandwiches in the stove, try aiming a silver cheese toaster with a hot water compartment toward the open fire. 
5. Soy frame. This is one form of the cruet, a stand holding bottles of sauces, which is socially on a level with the ketchup-and-mustard stand at your local fast food restaurant.
6. Spoon warmer. You don't mean you've been using cold spoons to serve food with, do you? The spoon warmer contains hot water in which to keep serving-spoons on a buffet table.
7. Salver. This is just a small-footed tray for serving drinks, but Miss Manners likes the idea that it was named for the hope that it would save one's clothes from the dribble. 
8. Epergne. Miss Manners throws this in because its name also refers (in French) to saving. The epergne is a many-armed centerpiece to be filled with fruits, nuts and candy, and its name refers to a direction to the staff to save whatever is left after the guests have finished gobbling. – Miss Manners, 1989

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

In Praise of Old Etiquette Books

“You don't happen to remember your name, do you?” 

Even dusty old etiquette books are nothing to sneeze at!

It was on a crumbling page of a 100-year-old etiquette book that Miss Manners came across the solution to that enduring problem: What to say when confronted with a person whose name you know you are expected to know, but don't. The answer comes to us from an anonymous Victorian, apparently a Hero of Etiquette but described merely as “a good-natured eccentric.” 

Beaming a jovial smile at a vaguely familiar face, he would inquire in a pleasant, oh-by-the-by tone, “You don't happen to remember your name, do you?” Miss Manners is given to perusing aged volumes for just such forgotten devices to ease the difficulties of life. Vintage etiquette holds up remarkably well. The human body may have changed, as anyone trying to squeeze into vintage clothing may discover, but the situations into which it manages to get itself, are not all that different. In some cases, whole sets of manners may simply be retrieved and dusted off. – Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, 1988

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

Miss Manners on Parenting

“The easy-going parent may well be remembered as uncaring, and the demonstrative one as suffocating. There is hardly a parental instinct that cannot be perverted into a grievance by the efforts of a thoughtful child, especially if aided by an enthusiastic therapist. It is a mistake, therefore, to guide one’s parental behavior with the risky business of reputation in mind.” 

Reminiscences of Childhood

“Be kind to your biographer,” Miss Manners’ dear father used to say when carefully dating his letters, diaries and memorabilia. It is an idea that takes on a whole new meaning when you consider that your most likely biographer is your own child. That few parents will end up as the leading characters in films or books written by their children is probably just as well. But there is a natural and not unreasonable human hope that one will be remembered as a supporting character when that child comes to bore his descendants with his reminiscences. What the overall judgment will be on the parents performance is a gamble. The easy-going parent may well be remembered as uncaring, and the demonstrative one as suffocating. There is hardly a parental instinct that cannot be perverted into a grievance by the efforts of a thoughtful child, especially if aided by an enthusiastic therapist. It is a mistake, therefore, to guide one’s parental behavior with the risky business of reputation in mind. 

The rule is to do the best you can, in what you believe to be the child's ultimate interests, and be prepared to suffer through the child’s later explanation of how he (by that time a childless young adult who knows everything) would have done it better. Nature has its own revenge, in that these people usually eventually have children of their own. But there are certain factors that can enhance childhood in a memorable way. (Miss Manners feels that this is a more acceptable way of putting it than suggesting that the parent work on the image.) The most effective of all, according to Miss Manners’ dear mother (and you can see what a success Miss Manners’ parents were at figuring favorably in their child’s memory), is the simplest. A teacher, she often heard the parental lamentation of “But we give him everything” from those whose children confided to their teacher, separately, how much they cheerfully hated their parents. The parental complaint was followed by a list itemizing valuable goods given. “I could never find a correlation between the parents’ generosity and the child’s feeling about them,” noted Miss Manners' mother. “Then I began to notice a connection between the child's feelings and the parents’ facial expressions when they came to pick him up at school, or even when they just talked about him. The parent who beamed at the child had a loving child, and the one who didn't, didn't. After that, it didn't seem to matter what else the parents did or didn't do.” 

Miss Manners is happy to present such unmaterialistic news, although she does not deny that many people’s fondest childhood memories have to do with toys or other presents. But then again, it is the way the thing is presented. The parent who gives whatever is asked, when it is asked, seems to get no return except increased expectation. The generally sensible parent, who restricts giving to fixed occasions and the choice of presents to items that are educational, useful or apt to be of lasting, rather than fleeting, enjoyment, will give enormous pleasure by a rare wild deviation from this policy. A gentleman of Miss Manners’ acquaintance once, while out to lunch with his teenaged daughter, impulsively stopped in a jewelry store and bought her diamond stud earrings. Miss Manners’ own father achieved the same effect, at somewhat less cost, when she was 11 and on an educational sightseeing trip by suddenly, without apparent cause or warning, buying flowers and pinning them on her coat. It is of such that memories are made and, incidentally, standards for future entrance into the family. A young lady who has experienced spontaneous romanticism is unlikely to fall in love with someone of grudging manners. – Miss Manners, 1984

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

Miss Manners on Tea Etiquette

“Tea is made in the drawing room in full view of the guests, so get it right. The proper method is this: Rinse the teapot with boiling water. Give your teaspoons a chance to do the job for which they were trained by putting in one teaspoon of loose tea (tea is claustrophobic and hates being stuffed into little bags) for each tea drinker, plus one. Now pour on the rapidly boiling water. There are few things worse than tepid tea.” 

Tea for Two or 3,000 

Dear Miss Manners: I should like to begin having tea on a daily schedule with friends stopping in, with or without invitations. A couple of questions do require answering: At what time is “teatime,” and should coffee be offered or placed on the table? 

Gentle Reader: Miss Manners adores afternoon tea, from “oh-do-join-me-for-a-cup” to royal receptions for 3,000 people. She would advise you to get some practice in the former before attempting the latter. There are few more charming ways to spend an afternoon than to sit, surrounded by fine china and friends, wolfing down scones and bringing up epigrams. 

If you wish to test the water before jumping in even on a weekly basis water for tea should always be boiling invite people for a specific day writing: Tea Tuesday the Seventeenth. Four to Six o’clock. All should be written in the lower left corner of your visiting cards. Later it may be “Tuesdays 4 to 6 p.m.” Place on a tray a large silver or copper kettle over an alcohol burner and tea caddy, with a teapot, cups (which have been warmed with boiling water), teaspoons, a slops bowl, a tea strainer, a milk pitcher (cream overpowers a dainty cup of tea), a bowl of lump sugar, little plates and napkins. 

Tea is made in the drawing room in full view of the guests, so get it right. The proper method is this: Rinse the teapot with boiling water. Give your teaspoons a chance to do the job for which they were trained by putting in one teaspoon of loose tea (tea is claustrophobic and hates being stuffed into little bags) for each tea drinker, plus one. Now pour on the rapidly boiling water. There are few things worse than tepid tea. 

When the tea has steeped for about four minutes, ask your guest of honor how she takes it. Using the strainer, pour straight from the pot for strong tea and dilute it from the kettle for weak. Then add sugar (the reason for using lump sugar is so you may ask the traditional “One lump or two?”) and milk, according to the taste. Some troublemakers prefer lemon to milk and you may put slices in a glass dish on the tray, but you are only encouraging them. 

When this ritual is performed, the guest takes her tea from the hostess or if there is a gentleman present, he takes it to her. She then takes a plate, napkins and a modest selection from your platters of hot breads, tiny sandwiches, cookies and a slice of whatever luscious cake your cook has baked that day. If you become addicted to this form of entertaining, you may need to to move on to stronger doses, such as the reception, which is tea served in the dining room.

The tea service is placed at one end of the table, and the teacups napkins, plates, forks if needed, and a larger supply of tea food (at least two of each kind mentioned above) go in the middle. At the other end stands an urn of chocolate, boullion, or more often lately to Miss Manners' dismay, coffee. You may ask friends “to pour,” that is to serve the tea and chocolate for you as you move among your guests. Being asked to pour is an honor just short of knighthood.

The traditional time for tea is four o'clock, which is perfect if you have your afternoons free. However, coffee is only one of the sad things that has happened to tea over the years. Some people have the idea that there is something more important to do in the afternoon than sip tea and eat buttered bread, such as earning a living. If you have friends who work, Miss Manners suggests that you schedule your tea on a weekend or at a time convenient to them on their way home when you could give them yet another variation, “high tea,” so as to replace, rather than interfere with, their supper. 

High tea is more substantial in all matters of food and drink than afternoon tea. It could include a whiskey and soda tray. Along with the dainty foods traditional to afternoon tea, there are soft boiled eggs, sausages, sardines on toast, kippers, chicken livers and such. While some unscrupulous restaurants try to make afternoon tea sound more “high society” by calling it “high tea,” the word “high” is actually related to “it's high time we had something to eat.” As social events go, high tea is lower on the scale than afternoon tea, because the chances of being fed dinner are small on a day you are given high tea. In that respect it is like the “cocktail-buffet,” than which there are few lower social events. – From Judith Martin’s, “Miss Manners’ "Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior,” 1985

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

Etiquette, Royal Titles and Diana

Fondly remembered as the “People’s Princess,” Diana’s life continues to fascinate in books, traveling exhibits and television programs, over 20 years after her death.

In 1985, Titles Created a Royal Problem for the Masses, And Miss Manners Responded

She is not “Princess Diana.” You perhaps know the lady Miss Manners means –the blonde one who wears hats so nicely but has not always managed to keep her hair out of her eyes. 

Born a commoner, she was styled "Lady Diana" by courtesy because her father is an earl. She is now, having married up, “the Princess of Wales.” Only should she become Queen consort would a royal title appear before her first name, as “Queen Diana.” Is that clear? Of course not. 

We Americans decided long ago that the idea of classifying some people as belonging to a higher order of humanity was not for us. Our highest title is “Mr.,” as in “Mr. President,” and it takes the individual some doing to get it. But the British do show up on our shores now and again, so one may want to know a bit about titles. 

Besides, it is difficult to make one's way through 19th-century British novels or 20th-century British television without being able to figure out who is called what and why. The subject is infinitely complicated, and disputes have been known to last for centuries. Miss Manners will concern herself only with the basic outline. Only the reigning Queen and her mother (as the widow of the previous King) are addressed as “Your Majesty,” other members of the royal family being addressed as “Your Royal Highness.” Children of the Sovereign also use the prefix “the,” as in “Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales.”

The peerage has five grades: duke, marquess (most use the good old English spelling rather than the French “marquis”), earl, viscount and baron. The female equivalents, for wives or widows (the latter styled dowager, if the succeeding peer has a wife) are: duchess, marchioness, countess, viscountess and baroness. Except for dukes and duchesses, who are called by those titles, peers and peeresses are addressed as “Lord” or “Lady” with the name of the senior peerage they possess. Legally, the children of these people are all commoners. 

However, dukes, marquesses and earls tend to have other titles as well, and by courtesy, their oldest sons use the next family title down until after, courteously enough, the funerals, not the deaths, of their fathers. Then there are titled commoners: baronets, whose degrees of honor are hereditary, and knights, whose are not. They use “Sir” before their full names, but are addressed with the title and given name only. Their wives use “Lady” with the surname only, never with their given names (a common American error). 

This is only the beginning. Miss Manners will not bore you with collateral privileges of the siblings of heirs presumptive who succeed, the rights of duchesses who were divorced in interesting trials, the children of peers who disclaimed their peerages, and so on. She only asks you to stop saying “Princess Diana.” – By Judith Martin, October 27, 1985

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