Have you ever met anyone who must constantly please people? Someone who hates confrontation and likes to obey the rules? Well, you’re talking to her. I can’t help myself. All of my friends like to make fun of me, and yes, I know I’ve got a problem. I guess it’s just my good upbringing and […]
Category: Etiquette
All about etiquette.
In Company
Please excuse me as I salivate over a wonderful additions to my collection. A gift from my dear sweet mother, this tiny pamphlet, written entirely in verse and is titled The School of Good Manners.It is dated 1822, and so became my earliest book. Some helpful readers have clued me in that the author was Nancy […]
Glove Etiquette
Q Dear Miss Abigail: I’ve heard that dressy gloves are really in at the present. Since I’ve never had occasion to wear them, I’d like to know if they’re taken off for dinner, and where the proper place to lay them would be? Signed, Ms. Jordan A Dear Ms. Jordan: Betcha didn’t think that I’d […]
Her Face Looked Like a Sequined Jacket!
Q Dear Miss Abigail: The other day I heard about a friend of a friend who’d had his tongue forked ~ that’s right, split up the middle. Then yesterday I saw a picture in the paper of a woman with some 200-odd piercings. Her face looked like a sequined jacket. Don’t you think this piercing […]
Don’t Sit with Clasped Hands
I stumbled across this little jem when paging through Margery Wilson’s The Woman You Want to Be, a book about charm. I really, truly, had no idea that sitting with clasped hands was a no-no. You learn something new every day! 1942: Don’t Sit with Clasped Hands Never sit hour after hour and day after day […]
How to Light a Cigarette
Q Dear Miss Abigail: What is the proper etiquette for lighting someone else’s cigarette? A friend of mine said if you’re using a lighter you light their’s first and your’s next, but if you’re using matches you light your’s first because of the sulfury taste of matches. I though you always light their’s first, but […]
Stop Drinking and Listen To Your Mother
Q Dear Miss Abigail: If you let your thirty-one year old son live with you, and you’re trying to help him get on his feet, and you’re selling him a car, shouldn’t he respect you and quit drinking? Signed, Dolly A Dear Dolly: Oh, goody. This is an easy one ~ YES! In fact, if […]
Music Etiquette
Passing along few more etiquette rules from an 1848 book for gentlemen, featured earlier this week. This one goes out to all the musicians (and music lovers) in the crowd! ~~If you intend to sing, do not affect to refuse when asked, but at once accede.~~Endeavor to adapt the style of your song to the […]
Conversation Etiquette from 1848
“Be sparing of anecdote, and only resort to it when you have a good illustration of some subject, or a piece of information of general interest. Do not attempt to relate every particular; but seize upon the grand points. Never relate the same anecdote the second time to the same company.” This tip comes from […]
New Book on Emily Post
Over the last few years I’ve been in contact off and on with author Laura Claridge, who just published a book about Emily Post titled Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners. I haven’t gotten my copy yet but did spot this write up in Slate this week. If you are […]