Reaching for the Right Fork in 1999

Don't know which fork to use? You say you don't much care? Figure such silliness really doesn't matter? Time to wake up and smell the coffee (which always should be served on your right): If your boredom with etiquette has led to ‘boor-dom’ at the dinner table, that new job you covet may be lost before dessert’s served.– Image from 

What Have We Here?: The Etiquette and Essentials of Lives Once Lived, from the Georgian Era through the Gilded Age and Beyond...

It's never too late to brush up on table etiquette. Don't know which fork to use? You say you don't much care? Figure such silliness really doesn't matter? Time to wake up and smell the coffee (which always should be served on your right): If your boredom with etiquette has led to ‘boor-dom’ at the dinner table, that new job you covet may be lost before dessert’s served.

Patti Shock, chairman of the tourism and convention department in the College of Hotel Administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said if a job interview includes a meal out, the applicant would be well-advised to be comfortable with the basics of etiquette. “There have been a lot of cases of people who have been on their third job interview, and it will be a meal function, and they'll do some faux pas and not get the job and not know why,” Shock said.

The list of prime lose-the-job offenses, she said, includes talking with a mouth full of food – something we all know we shouldn't do, but something that some of us apparently forget when we're busy trying to make what should be a good impression. “It's knowing that when you pass the bread, you pass to the right and you never force it in somebody’s hand; you place it on the table. And it always goes to the right,” she said. “If they ask for the salt, you pass (the salt and pepper) together. When eating soup, you don't lift the spoon directly to your mouth; you circle it away before bringing it to your mouth.”

All of which may sound like so much fussiness. But ignoring or being ignorant of such social niceties can brand you as person prospective employers, workers and friends aren't too eager to have around. “People who are educated in this will recognize little faux pas,” she said. As a country, Shock said, we're forgetting the rules of etiquette — something she notices among her mostly college-age students. “Back in my day, when you had the nuclear family that sat down to dinner at night, families generally instructed you,” said Shock, who's 58. “Plus, we used to have grandparents in the home” to provide any training parents missed. Many of today’s families, Shock said, rarely sit down and eat together.

“Now, it’s pretty much catch as catch can.” Some of the details of etiquette are admittedly arcane. But if, like a lot of people, you don't automatically know that your bread-and-butter plate is the one on your left, it's never too late to learn. You can study the basic rules, of course; Judith Martin has even written an entire book on the subject, “Miss Manners’ Basic Training: Eating.”

You can take cues from your more well-versed dinner companions. And while Shock laments that many restaurants aren’t training their servers in the fine points of etiquette anymore, some still are, so – especially in better restaurants — you may take your cues from your server.

At Le Cirque restaurant at Bellagio, 3600 Las Vegas Blvd. South, the staff underwent a three-week training program before the restaurant opened, said assistant general manager Peter Tischmann, on “everything from proper place setting to posture in the restaurant to verbiage.” Daily sessions, Tischmann said, reinforce various points.

Tischmann said that, like all other aspects of proper etiquette, it's important for servers to make guests comfortable. “It's definitely one of the basics, to make them feel at ease,” he said. “We don't want to be uptight and stuffy.” Tischmann conceded that the elaborate place settings the restaurant sometimes uses can be intimidating for some patrons.

“I just don't think they're knowledgeable about it, in terms of silverware settings and what forks and knives to use,” Tischmann said. “It can be sort of overwhelming, whether it be a fish knife or oyster fork. We have a whole slew of silverware,” Tischmann said, ”six or seven different spoons” that may include demitasse, dessert and sauce spoons in addition to the familiar teaspoon.

As a waiter serves a person, he said, they're instructed to subtly explain the silverware – “And here is your fish knife,” for example – to make things easier on guests. Some of the niceties of server etiquette at Le Cirque are things guests don’t even have to concern themselves with. If a guest excuses him – or herself mid-meal, for example, there will be a fresh napkin waiting upon their return. “We're very keen on those things,” Tischmann said.

At Hugo’s Cellar at the Four Queens, 202 Fremont St., each new server receives a booklet covering about 20 points and must take written and practical exams, said Vincent Wiggins, sommelier. Periodic training seminars also are scheduled. “In most cases, at this restaurant, we do not hire a new waiter without some sort of gourmet experience.” Wiggins said.

Wiggins said, “Hugo’s Cellar uses a relatively straightforward place setting – salad fork, dinner fork, knife, spoon, bread-and-butter plate, bread-and-butter knife, napkin and wine glass – and we leave them pretty much on their own unless they ask.” In case of a faux pas — a patron who uses a dinner fork for his or her salad — “we would just replace it when the entree arrives,” Wiggins said.

Wiggins said he doesn't think we're collectively losing our grasp of etiquette. “I think people are more etiquette-savvy – maybe because they're eating out more,” he said.

At Rosemary's, 8125 W. Sahara Ave., service manager Rick Powers said servers spent two weeks in training before the restaurant opened seven months ago and receive continuous training, including pre-meal training before service starts each day. The restaurant’s best servers train new servers. “We also ask them to go out as much as they can and try to feel out service standards and what they like and don't like and bring it back to me,” he said.

Powers said his clients tend to be well-versed in etiquette. “Most are local,” he said. “Most are educated in food and dining.” But sometimes, he said, customers may think things are moving too slowly, not realizing that that's how it's supposed to be. “We're here for you to dine, not just eat and run,” he said.

Charlie Abowd, chef/owner of Adele’s in Carson City, said while he sees most people following the basic rules of etiquette, coping with modern challenges tends to elude them. “Today, I think the common etiquette mistake is that people don't have respect for time,” he said. “And cell phones are the biggest player in that. If you're sitting down and we're having a conversation, that totally interrupts the conversation you and I have.” 

“People don't realize the depths of that. If I got up and went over and sat down at another table and left you there abandoned, that would be the same thing. People do have table manners; I think it's ‘human manners’ that are lacking,” Abowd said. “Everything is going so fast that we've forgotten the common courtesies in life. It's such a ‘now’ society.” And Abowd, whose clientele generally includes a lot of people involved in state government, cautioned that loose lips can sink deals as well as ships.

“It’s always funny when you have new players in the Legislature — typically, new young lobbyists who don't know all the players, who will be sitting in close proximity and discussing openly their strategies,” he said. “I've seen a couple of times when strategies have been blown because of not knowing all the players. I had recently somebody talking about the Leadership when in fact, sitting within 3 feet of that person talking about the Leadership, was one of the Leadership,” Abowd said.

“I went back into the kitchen and had one of my staff tell that person that they had a phone call, and brought them back into the kitchen and told them who was sitting nearby. I got a Little Feat CD as a thank-you.”— Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1999

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

Etiquette and Publicity

Etiquette reminder for those with a love of publicity: “There will be always a publicity naturally resulting from our political and social institutions which can not be avoided. It behooves us, therefore, to augment its good and diminish its ill effects as far as it lies in our power.” 

Love of Publicity 

Political institutions, by their recognition of the equal rights of all men, call upon each individual to manifest himself. Every American being thus not only free to speak and act, but feeling it his duty to do so, becomes, more or less, a public man. The political influence extends to the social habits, and we have, in consequence, but little privacy of life.

Our love of publicity is shown by the gregarious modes in which we live and move. That great caravansary, the American hotel, is a characteristic expression of the national protest against individual separateness. It is constructed on the principle that it is not good for any human being to be alone except when he is asleep, and even then it is not seldom that he is provided with one or more companions. The bedrooms are made just large enough to lie down in, and are evidently only designed for that purpose. These, thrust far away under the eaves, are ordinarily the only provision for the individual. The rest, composing much the larger and most accessible part of the structure, is appropriated to the public, for whom, moreover, all the splendor and convenience are exclusively furnished.

So much is the American hotel constructed for the especial advantage of the aggregate many, and so little are the requirements of the particular one considered, that, while thousands are feasted there luxuriously at certain hours every day, no single hungry man can, at any other moment, get a chop or a potato to save himself from starving. In traveling the same gregarious practices obtain, and no one, however tender of body and fastidious in mind, can entirely escape the nudge of the elbow or the shock from the words of a rude neighbor.

This shaking together, so universal with us, has not been without its marked effects upon the character and manners of our people. The good may be thought by some to transcend the bad. It has led, undoubtedly, to a fuller recognition of common interests and mutual obligation, and thus humanized the multitude. Meeting together as we all do on the road and the road-side, in the enjoyment of the same cheaply-purchased privileges, we are forced, temporarily at least, to a social equality, which can not fail to elevate the spirit of the humble and check the aspirations of the proud.

One of the worst effects of the gregarious system is the perpetual intrusiveness of the many upon the retirement which is at times necessary and pleasing to each person. The uniformity of sentiment, moreover, which is apt to result, and overbear the private judgment and the individual conscience, may be also considered as one of the most serious evils. There is a certain boldness, too, of manners, which is more observable and offensive in the young than in others, which is traceable to the publicity of American life.

We should, particularly in this country, cultivate domestic privacy as the best check to the excessive tendency to gregariousness. We, on the contrary, are apt to cultivate the latter at the expense of the former; thus the practice common with us of living in hotels and boarding-houses, where that reserve so necessary to the development of the individual character and the acquisition of modest manners is impossible.

There will be always a publicity naturally resulting from our political and social institutions which can not be avoided. It behooves us, therefore, to augment its good and diminish its ill effects as far as it lies in our power. As we can not get rid of each other, let us make ourselves mutually useful and agreeable by the improvement of our sentiments and manners. With the greater publicity in America, public opinion is necessarily more extensive in its influence, and therefore it is especially important that it should be exerted in favor of the good and beautiful. –The Bazar Book of Decorum, 1870

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

Historic U.S. Senate Etiquette Breaches

Depiction of  U.S. Senator Henry S. Foote (“a voluble, unscrupulous, sharp and successful stump speaker”) drawing a pistol on the Senate floor and attempting to shoot a fellow politician. Foote is the only senator in American history to attempt such a thing.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14, 1852 “It is a pity that there are not enough self-respecting gentlemen among the members of the United States Senate to put an end to the disgraceful breaches of decorum and common decency which are now of almost daily occurrence in that once honorable body.” –The New York Times

“Senators Rhett and Clemens have contributed largely, in their recent collision, to that unworthy-spirit which is been infused into the United States Senate within the last ten years, and which threatens, unless checked, seriously to impair the character and influence of that distinguished body. They have indulged in personal accusations, and in the use of epithets of the most offensive and reprehensible character. Language, which no man having respect for the ordinary courtesies of life would permit himself to use in private intercourse, has been freely bandied from one to the other upon the floor of what has been styled often times, and with justice, the most dignified deliberative body in the world. Charges of knavery, lying and cowardice have been hurled from one to the other, in open Senate, with all the volubility, and more than the vulgarity, of Billingsgate. Other Senators, so far from preventing these insults and outrages upon the character of that body, took special pains to encourage the actors in them, and to prompt their repetition.

“When the degradation in the manners of the Senate shall be complete, and that body shall have been converted into the prize-fight ring to which by such scenes it seems to approximate, the public temper will inevitably sink to a corresponding level. Much of the popular respect for law grows out of the feeling of confidence in those who make it; and nothing is more important to the preservation of a healthy and conservative spirit among the people, than a dignified, decorous, and impressive demeanor, on the part of our highest legislative bodies. When the Senate becomes simply an arena for personal quarrels, -- when attacks upon personal character take the place of deliberation and discussion on themes of national importance, the whole tone of popular feeling will be lowered and the public morality will suffer disastrous change.

“What have personal controversies to do with public interest? What right have Senators, met to consult for the common good, to bring their paltry personalities -- their private differences, upon the high platform of national affairs, to be canvassed and adjusted in sight of the world? Mr. Seward never stated a more pertinent fact, than when he said a year or two since, but no man's personal affairs or opinions were worth ten minutes of the time that belongs to the nation. Ten or fifteen years ago, when such men as Clay and Calhoun and Webster gave tone and character to the deliberations of the Senate, such a thing as a low personal squabble was unknown upon that floor. Personal attacks were made and repelled, -- but only upon grounds of important public principal, and in a tone and terms befitting that high position. 

“With the advent of Senator Foote, of Mississippi, commenced a new era in the history of the American Senate. He had established a reputation at home as a voluble, unscrupulous, sharp and successful stump speaker; and he evidently regarded the Senate as only a higher field for the exercise of his peculiar gifts. He talked to the Senate just as he had talked to mass meetings at home. He teased and bullied members of the opposite party, -- he hurled epithets and scattered accusations against all with whom he differed, -- he bandied names and drew pistols upon his fellow members, as he found each species of argument most convenient and serviceable for the special occasion. His whole career in the Senate was a systematic crusade against the dignity and decorum of that body. His spirit has lingered behind his retiring steps. And the Senate now has half a dozen members equally lacking in self-respect and in regard for the reputation of the body to which they belong.

“Neither house of Congress seems at all sensitive to the degradation which such practices are bringing upon both. From neither are any measures to be expected, which will correct the evil, or check the downward tendency of Congressional manners. The only remedy is in public sentiment, and the Press as its chief organ. It is the duty of the Press never to allow any such outrage upon propriety, to pass unscathed. When members of Congress, in either branch, shall come to feel that no breach of propriety can escape severe censure from the public press, and that neither party adhesion nor personal regard can procure immunity for such offenses, they will be more careful in their conduct, and pay a steadier regard to the requirements of decorum and self-respect.” 1852

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

Congress Brawls, Breaches Etiquette

Famous depiction of Brooks caning Sumner ~ On May 22, 1856, in the United States Congress, Representative Preston Brooks attacked Senator Charles Sumner with his walking cane. Fellow South Carolinian Congressman Lawrence Keitt famously yelled, "Let them be!"while Brooks beat Sumner senseless. This was said to be in retaliation for a speech given by Sumner two days prior. The beating nearly killed Sumner. The sharply polarized response from the American public that this beating drew, on the subject of the expansion of slavery in the U.S., was considered highly symbolic of a breakdown of "reasoned discourse" which eventually led to the U.S. Civil War

Our Social Manners

Congressman and bully, Preston Brooks

The episode which occurred on Saturday morning, in the House of Representatives at Washington, has a social, as well as political aspect, which a sensitive people like ourselves would do well to consider. We allude to the probable effect of these "little difficulties" upon the world's opinion about ourselves and our civilization. Of course, we think it right, before we say a word on the subject, to protest that we need not care a six-pence about the world's opinion. Lords of the Alleghenies and the Cordilleras, of the Mississippi and the Hudson, of the broadest lakes and the most interminable prairies of the earth, we naturally are to despise and condemn the effete criticism of all the human race besides. Our innumerable banks and our indefinite railways make us independent of foreign nations, as of foreign cash. Unfortunately, however, all things are not as they should be, even in our model country, and we particularly do care a great deal more than we are always ready to admit, what Englishman and Frenchman say of our manners and customs. We are always on the look-out for any little scrap of comment upon us that a foreigner happens to let drop. If it is favorable we purr beneath it, like a well-stroked cat -- if unfavorable, our fury is a frightful thing to see. The faintest insinuation that our men are not all "high toned" and chivalrous, and our women are not all graceful and handsome, throws us into convulsions. If a roving English tourist hints that somebody he met at Washington eats peas with his knife, the peaceful relations of the two countries are immediately endangered. If a London penny-a-liner throws out an insinuation that the stewed prunes on board a Collins steamer are not so good as on the Cunard line, the whole nation rises in frenzy. In short, there is not a fool or knave, from Maine to California, who is not sure of having his absurdities or rascalities defended to the death by the whole of this republic, if you can only get a foreigner to print unkind remarks about them.

A "Harper's Weekly" depiction of two observers in the gallery, commenting on the fracas described in this New York Times article ~ Lawrence Keitt, the man who yelled "Let them be!" while Brooks beat Sumner 2 years earlier, got into a fight of his own in 1858. During a very late, 2 a.m. House session, Republican Galusha Grow wandered over to the Democrats' side of the aisle, and Keitt reportedly yelled, "Go back to your side of the House, you Black Republican puppy!" Grow retorted, "No negro-driver shall crack his whip over me." The resulting brawl embarrassingly involved 50 members of Congress. 

Such being the state of affairs, the manners and customs of our leading men, upon whom the eyes of the world are most apt to fall, really assume a portentous importance. What is to be done, if our Solons want conduct themselves with propriety? If they will treat themselves in the Legislative halls to "a rough-and-tumble and drag-out fight," Punch will make fun of us, the London Times will jeer at us, and many of the rotten and worn-out Aristocracies of the Old World, whom we despise in our hearts, will say that there are no gentleman among us. Here, for half a century we have been bragging to all of Europe of the exquisite polish and chivalric refinement of our Southern seaboard planters, of our Carolinian Huguenots and our Virginian Cavaliers. We gave up the Yankees; from the sons of the Roundheaded Puritans nobody could look for anything better than gaucherie and inquisitive impertinence. But our "proud answer to the despot and the tyrant," to the old fogies of London, and Paris, and Vienna, when they boasted of their society and their manners, was a warning to wait till his fortunate stars should bring him into contact with the chivalry of the Old Dominion or the Palmetto State. We had gradually convinced ourselves and almost all the world as well, that our rice-swamps and our tobacco-fields were stocked with a noble army of plantation Bayards and of "mute, inglorious" Sidneys. It was a dreadful shock to all of us that Brooks, of the line of Butler, gave when he behaved like a pot-house bully in the Senate Chamber, and listening lords and ladies of his native State applauded. People began to think our "chivalry" in someway connected with the celebrated "Mrs. Harris," but we tried to stifle all their doubts by asserting that Brooks had derogated through overmuch drink, and that it was only very vulgar people who clubbed together to buy him canes. And now comes up Mr. Keitt, another "gentleman" of our "well-known style," and plunges us into a worse scrape than the first. He has behaved so very much like a man who is been bred "behind" the bar and so very unlike a man who has been accustomed to behave himself in decent company, but unless we can make it appear beyond a doubt that he always was considered a low fellow even at home, and that they sent him to Congress to get him out of Carolina, we may be obliged to go to war to prove that we are well-bred people; unless indeed, we adopt a hint from the "World Exhibition," and, as soon as Kansas shall have been fairly pacified, pick up a few specimens of the "real high-toned chivalric gentleman," and send them over properly ticketed, guaranteed and indorsed, to be shown at Willis' rooms or the Conservatoire, under the supervision of the United States Minister.             Originally printed in The New York Times February 9, 1858