Jekyll and Hyde Manners

Please, no crooked or extended pinky fingers! – One mark of the unpolished man is his obvious eagerness to appear polished. Never is it more noticeable than at a formal dinner. Hoisting a teacup, he crooks his little finger. Instead of wiping his mouth with a napkin, he purses his lips and “pat-pats” them.

  Exposing the Unpolished Man

One mark of the polished man is that he doesn’t knock himself out being polished. He may have committed a dozen etiquette books to memory but doesn’t flaunt the fact. He’s casual and unaffected. His good manners seem to flow spontaneously from innate good taste, breeding and a flair for the appropriate. He doesn't wear his savoir-faire on his sleeve. 

One mark of the unpolished man is his obvious eagerness to appear polished. Never is it more noticeable than at a formal dinner. Hoisting a teacup, he crooks his little finger. Instead of wiping his mouth with a napkin, he purses his lips and “pat-pats” them. He makes a big fuss over which fork to use and finally, when told to copy his hostess, bugs this lady by scrutinizing her every move. Determined to please, he dislpleases his hostess. Before embarrassing his hostess by reporting a smudge on his spoon, he –charitably and conspicuously – cleans it with his napkin. He makes a great to-do about transferring his fork from left to right hand after cutting his meat, unaware that Europeans have been eating with their left hands for centuries and disdain the American's clumsy crisscross method. 

The unpolished man frequently has two sets of table manners – dowdy ones for home, and “Sunday-go-to-meeting ones” for company. This is doubly unfortunate. First, schizophrenic table manners fool no one. Secondly, the owner slights his taste buds. Frequently, he is practicing an etiquette that went out years ago, if it ever existed. He will risk ptomaine, for example, rather than remove suspect food from his mouth. He will eat cold filet rather than begin eating before all 40 guests are served. And finally, before reaching a few inches for a vegetable, he will inconvenience his neighbor to pass it or forego a second serving. 

But endeavoring to be Mr. Hyde at one’s own table and Dr. Jekyll at everyone else’s, may have even cruder consequences. They involve a man’s family. His wife, seeing him in both roles, silently, or perhaps not so silently, deplores the hypocrisy of it all. And his children, rarely privileged to see his good company manners, have no alternative but to copy his bad at-home ones.

Q and A on P’s and Q’s 
(Q) "Is it wrong to cut salad with a knife?" N.R. 
(A) It used to be, but expediency and the advent of the head-lettuce salad have made a fossil of this particular taboo. If you don't need a knife, naturally don't use one. But if you need one and a salad knife isn't provided, don't hesitate to use your table knife. – By Don Goodwin, 1963

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

Tea Etiquette and the Pinky Debate

Not only did Disney have it wrong on the pinky finger sticking out, but Alice having her elbows on the table, is certainly considered rude.

“Disney has it wrong I’m afraid; the extended pinky is a big no-no. The correct way to hold the teacup is to lightly grip the handle between your thumb and fingers but not clutch your fingers around the handle. Sticking your little finger out into the air whilst drinking tea in England will likely get you some strange looks and weak smiles but they won’t get you invited to the palace for afternoon tea, so please keep them tucked in nice and tight. Some people say that the “pinkies out” affectation dates back to the eleventh century when it was considered cultured to eat with three fingers and common to eat with five. Another explanation is that the earlier styled tea cups had no handles and therefore the little finger was extended to provide balance.” – Rachel North, Shipshape Etiquette

Old Chinese tea cups in Great Britain. 

Many disagree on the whole pinky finger debate, but most anthropologists believe the lower classes watched the upper classes on how to hold their cups, and believe that heat had nothing to do with how people held their handless cups of tea. “After all, the tea and cups came from China and the Chinese held their handleless cups in a manner without fingers extended.” – Maura J. Graber, The RSVP Institute of Etiquette

And prior to small salt spoons being used, other ways of salting one's food or adding spices were devised. "Pinky fingers were extended while eating, and kept away from the greasy foods so that they could be used for dipping into expensive spices." –Bernadette Petrotta, The Art of Social Graces

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

Etiquette and Pinky Fingers

Please keep your “pinky” curled, and we'll offer you some of these yummy treats.  

Many people mistakenly think, and actually still teach others, that one’s pinky finger should be extended when one is drinking tea from a cup. This is not considered proper by any trusted etiquette authorities. It is what is commonly known as an “affectation” that has been promoted by television and the media for some time now, just as women eating and drinking while wearing gloves, has been promoted in period dramas and films. As Judith Martin put it, these little nuances help with what “is evidently intended to add a touch of what passes for ‘class.’” However, they are absolutely incorrect.

Curl your fingers as much as you can.

Many anthropologists and sociologists believe this habit was acquired hundreds of years ago, when the poor servants of the wealthy landowners and royalty in Europe, watched how their “Lords and Ladies” dined. They believe the servants picked up the habit of keeping a finger extended while drinking and dining.

And look, we don't thrust our pinky fingers out to pour the tea, either...

Only the wealthy could afford to purchase salt and exotic spices, like nutmeg, at their tables. Foods were eaten with one’s hands and a knife. Utensils were not used at many tables then. When dining, these wealthy people would keep the “pinky” finger extended when scooping up foods so that they could keep grease off of that finger. The finger could then be dipped into the salt or spices needed to season their foods. This kept grease and food particles out of the dishes holding the spices.
                          

Pinky fingers are perfect for “pinky rings,” not for sticking out while drinking tea.

Others think it started when tea and handle-less cups from China became popular in Europe. They believe tea drinkers would keep the pinky out because the cup was too hot to hold. However, the Chinese have never extended fingers in that manner, nor have the Japanese when drinking tea from cups without handles, so why would the British? 

The traditional cups that the Chinese use, still do not have handles to this day. These cups are held in the palm of the hand. Old artwork from the time, proves this as well. Perhaps the size of the hand holding the cup affected whether or not a pinky finger was left dangling in the air with some tea drinkers?

Old artwork can be very helpful in showing a period as it truly was lived.

Coffee houses, at which hot coffee was served, were very fashionable in England prior to tea drinking becoming the trend. There is no debate though on how to drink coffee from a cup with regard to pinky fingers being ridiculously thrust out. The only debate with coffee, is that in many countries, it is still socially acceptable for one to pour his or her hot coffee into the saucer, in order for it to cool down to a drinkable temperature more quickly. Pouring one's coffee into the saucer to drink, has not been socially acceptable in many other countries, since the early to mid-1800s. 

Hot chocolate was also drunk in similar, but oftentimes taller, cups. Saucers with deeper wells or “cages” were the norm for many years with these sets for hot chocolate. Also called “trembleuse” in France or “mancerina” in Spain, the saucers were designed to protect the cups from the “trembling” hands of elderly hot chocolate drinkers. Again, pinky fingers were seemingly not an issue.

Here are two etiquette violations in one image~ Drinking with gloves on and sticking the pinky finger out.

Today, most all etiquette authorities agree; The proper way to hold a tea cup is with one or two fingers of the right hand put through the hole of the cup handle, while balancing the cup with your thumb on the top of the handle. Some etiquette consultants recommend “pinching” the tea cup handles to hold the cup. Either way, your other fingers should be curled beneath the handle. — By Maura J. Graber, The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, 2005

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

Tea Table Etiquette

Patented design for a tea service in 1873

Quaint Customs Once Observed by British Dames

Tea drinking has become very fashionable among us of late years, almost as much as it was in England a century ago, but the prevailing customs at the table are different. The “teacup times of hood and hoop” had their own etiquette, of a sort not likely to be revived. What should we think now of a fashionable lady who cooled her tea with her breath? 

Yet Young says of a certain bewildering Lady Betty:
Her two red lips affected zephyrs blow
To cool the Bohea and inflame the beau.
While one white finger and a thumb conspire
To lift the cup and make the world admire.

Again a passage in contemporary literature shows that it was a lack of good manners to take much cream or sugar in one's tea. Says a lady of quality to her daughter: “I must further advise you, Harriet, not to heap such mountains of sugar into your tea, nor to pour such a deluge of cream in. People will certainly take you for the daughter of a dairymaid.” 

Pinky fingers should not be thrust out– A pinky finger held out and up in the air, was never a quaint English custom! ~ Not a real “Dame,” and not the “daughter of a dairymaid,” either, Etiquipedia doubts that the cross-dressing, comedian “Dame Edna,” is what the writer of this article had in mind. 

Certain other customs may be remembered in this country among us who had grandmothers trained in the ceremonies of a later day. One of them consisted in putting the spoon in the cup to show that no more tea was desired; another was that of turning over the cup in the saucer for the same purpose.

Etiquette also demanded that the tea should be tasted from the spoon, and that the hostess should then inquire, “Is your tea agreeable?” Certain scrupulous old ladies ask that now, and the question savors of a more sedate and gentle day than this. — From The St. Louis Republic, 1899

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