Madame Chic’s “Manners 101”

Communicate your grace by employing common courtesy on a daily basis.

Common Courtesy

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Common courtesies are the Manners 101 of the etiquette world. Sadly, it's a course that most of society is currently flunking. Common courtesy is saying “please” and “thank you.” Saying “excuse me” when you bump into someone. Holding the door open for the person behind you. Common courtesy should govern the way you interact with everyone from the grocery checkout person to the janitor at your office. I include common courtesy in this chapter on communication because manners communicate respect to other people.

Because common courtesy is so rare nowadays, your manners will stand out like a rare gem to the person you are extending them to. How many times have you seen someone completely ignore the grocery clerk as the person chats on the phone? I'm sure this irks the grocery clerk to not be acknowledged. None of us are too busy or important to acknowledge with eye contact or a smile the people with whom we interact.

Common courtesies include the manners we were taught as children. Whenever I hear someone say, “Give me a cup of coffee,” to a barista, I want to say, “What's the magic word?” “May I have a cup of coffee, please” is much more polite. When ordering at a restaurant, I used to say to the waiter, “I want.” One day my husband (who knew!) said to me, “‘I would like’ is a much better way to phrase your request.” Point taken. “I would like” does sound much more polite than “I want.”

Have you ever let someone into your lane and not been thanked with a wave? If you're driving and trying to get into a lane, have you ever had someone speed up so you couldn't get in? When we practice common courtesy, we can change the climate of our neighborhood and in our small way inspire others to do so as well. Just a small wave of thanks to another driver might make that driver more likely to let others into his or her lane in the future. You never know what a small wave could mean.

Perhaps every morning you pass a neighbor on the sidewalk who ignores you. You could consistently say good morning to that neighbor each day with a cheerful smile. Don't worry if the neighbor responds to you or not. That is none of your business, and don't take offense if he or she doesn't. You are “keeping your side of the street clean” by greeting your neighbor. Sometimes when I encounter a grumpy neighbor who is intent on staring at the sidewalk intensely rather than greeting me, I shrink back and think I better not. But this doesn't feel natural to me. It feels very unnatural to ignore my fellow man. So I always say “hi.” This usually brings the neighbor out of his or her funk, and that neighbor either says a belated “hello” or just looks at me in shock. Has life on earth become so impersonal that a simple greeting has be come shocking? Perhaps.

As a poised person, practice common courtesy. Don't worry what others are doing or not doing in your vicinity. They will either come around or they won't. The point is to not compromise your integrity. Don't let other people get you down! Communicate your grace by employing common courtesy on a daily basis. — From Jennifer L. Scott’s “Polish your poise with Madame Chic, 2015

When she arrived at Madame Chic’s Parisian apartment as a foreign exchange student, Jennifer Scott was a casual California girl who thought sweatpants were appropriate street attire. Madame Chic took Jennifer under her wing and tutored her in the secrets of how the French elevate the little things in life to the art of living. Years later, Jennifer was back in California with a husband, two young daughters, a dog, and her first home. Every day she confronted mundane duties like folding laundry and unloading the dishwasher, and she began to think about Madame Chic’s home—how the breakfast table was set beautifully the night before, the music that always played in the background, the calm of Madame and Monsieur Chic’s ritual cocktail hour together. Jennifer wanted that life. She decided to see what would happen if she didn’t perform her chores impatiently or mindlessly, if, instead, she could live like Madame Chic… This is just one of the books from her marvelous series.

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

Polish Your Poise and Vocabulary

Vulgarity IS no substitute for wit, as the Dowager Countess would say. And Jennifer L. Scott most likely agrees with her. This post comes from her wonderful book, “Polish Your Poise with Madame Chic” – “… how can you deal with a society that increasingly devalues language and lauds the curse word? When I hear people cursing loudly in public, especially when I'm with my girls, I long to give the curser an etiquette smack-down. But I resist because I think setting a good example is more effective. You can commit to being a good example too.”

Polishing Your Poise with MADAME CHIC 

By Eliminating Vulgarities

Poised people do not have potty mouth. If you struggle with this, and are committed to cultivating poise, it's time to clean up your language. I have not always been an angel in this area. When I was younger, I thought it was cool to swear and did so regularly when talking with my friends. Then after I observed how carefully Madame Chic always chose her words, swearing with my friends no longer felt funny to me, it just felt crass. When I decided to cultivate poise, I knew it had no place in my life. Cleaning up your language isn't always easy. I'm not promising that when I stub my toe an expletive won't come out of my mouth, but on the whole, I commit to being conscious about the words I speak. 

When you commit to cleaning up your language, you might have to clean up the music you listen to and the entertainment you watch as well. The other day my husband and I decided to watch a popular detective show from a cable net work because we had heard from many people that it was the “best ever.” We had to check it out! Twenty-five minutes into the first episode, I had to turn it off. My husband agreed. I don't care how brilliant a show is, I don't feel like listening to the f-bomb being dropped every ten seconds. Now that I've committed to cleaning up my language, listening to someone litter their speech with swear words is like watching a big black fly floating in a pretty china teacup. Perhaps this is why I like Downton Abbey so much? I'm sure that's one of many reasons.

So how can you deal with a society that increasingly devalues language and lauds the curse word? When I hear people cursing loudly in public, especially when I'm with my girls, I long to give the curser an etiquette smack-down. But I resist because I think setting a good example is more effective. You can commit to being a good example too. When you are at lunch with your friend who casually says the f-word repeatedly over salad and iced tea, you can commit to not joining in. You can commit to making all the sounds that come out of your mouth beautiful and empowering. Perhaps she will get it. Perhaps she won't. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you are making a choice as to how your speech will affect the world. You have viewers, and they will be attracted to how intelligent and levelheaded you sound. Madame Chic never cursed. Nary a “zut alors!” came out of her mouth. She chose her words carefully, and now I choose to do the same.

When she arrived at Madame Chic’s Parisian apartment as a foreign exchange student, Jennifer Scott was a casual California girl who thought sweatpants were appropriate street attire. Madame Chic took Jennifer under her wing and tutored her in the secrets of how the French elevate the little things in life to the art of living. Years later, Jennifer was back in California with a husband, two young daughters, a dog, and her first home. Every day she confronted mundane duties like folding laundry and unloading the dishwasher, and she began to think about Madame Chic’s home—how the breakfast table was set beautifully the night before, the music that always played in the background, the calm of Madame and Monsieur Chic’s ritual cocktail hour together. Jennifer wanted that life. She decided to see what would happen if she didn’t perform her chores impatiently or mindlessly, if, instead, she could live like Madame Chic… This is just one of the books from her marvelous series.

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

Of Money and Manners in 1907

“Garish vulgarity taints what is regarded, commonly at least, as the ‘best society.’ How much richer may we get before degenerating into utter savagery?”      ———— Mark Twain’s and Charles Dudley Warner’s 1873 novel, “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today,” satirized the era from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. It was a period of great division in the United States, between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ — a period when serious social problems and changes were marked by a thin vermeil gilding, amid great wealth inequalities.

A Gilded Age Lament

We of this blessed country have more money and less manners than any other people on earth. The more money the more neglect of manners. We rush through life in such a hurry these days that there is little time or thought for the refinements and courtesies that, in the good old days of our grandparents, were considered necessary elements of good breeding. We have cut courtesy out of business hours. We have come to regard it as a time-consumer and a waste —an indefinable and rather boresome something in the way of an affectation, which we may put on with our best clothes for weddings, parties and other such affairs, but not to be carried about with us on ordinary occasions.

The man or woman who has really good manners, nowadays, we distinguish as being of the “old school.” Unfortunately, the old school is passing away and there is no new one to take its place. So far have we sunk, that the man of genuine courtesy and polish must balance it with some sort of coarseness or be damned as a “sissy.” Maybe it is ill-mannered to say such things, but the fact, no less than the ill-mannered assertion of it, fits the times. Garish vulgarity taints what is regarded, commonly at least, as the ‘best society.’ How much richer may we get before degenerating into utter savagery?— Indianapolis Sun, 1907

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

Etiquette and Moral Teaching

Eating food from his knife... “It is horrid and vulgar and all that, of course, to put one's knife between one's lips, but put it there and keep it there, say I, to nil eternity, rather than give room to scornful words and bits of scandal.”

A Victorian Argument for Teaching Morality as Equally as Manners

Did you ever stop to think that if one-half the anxiety expended in teaching a child not to eat with its knife were directed toward teaching it to be charitable and pure, truthful and sweet hearted the world would be a better inn to tarry at? It is horrid and vulgar and all that, of course, to put one's knife between one's lips, but put it there and keep it there, say I, to nil eternity, rather than give room to scornful words and bits of scandal. As for me, I shall grow gray headed perhaps, and decrepit if the Lord spares me; my children's children shall rise up and call me grandmother, the friends of my youth shall wane also as wanes the harvest moon, but even down to and through the palsy of life's decline I shall protect my right to take up a bit of elusive potato with whatever utensil it seemeth easiest to avail myself of. 

I do not think the angel who guards the celestial gate will stop to ask no much whether we used our knives in eating as whether we slashed and stabbed at each other with weapons of scandal and indiscriminating hate. There will be worse things charged against us, I am thinking, than the breach of social amenities or the failure in conventional usages. The question propounded will take hold of deeper matters, and our entrance into the great company of the elect shall depend on graver issues. So let us spend less time in polishing the externals; let us look to it that not only the fabric of the character we weave grows glistening and white, but also that the texture is firm and there are no dropped stitches and shoddy warp for the light of eternity to reveal.—Chicago Herald, 1893

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