![]() Table manners come up in Eccleasticus, don’t wolf your food and don’t reach for anything first. And forks, somehow forks always come up.Īs ever, guides to such things go way back: Confucius wrote about social relationships, Renaissance books of courtesies (how to behave at a royal court), even a 3 rd millennium BCE Egyptian work stressing the importance of virtues like kindness, truthfulness, not speaking down to others, and laugh at the boss’ jokes, really. It might also bring to mind situations where you felt awkward or out of place, uncertain or unaware of what to do and afraid of making a mistake in short, a clod. I’m Joe Janes of the University of Washington Information School, and when you think of “etiquette” – the word comes directly from the French for “ticket” – you likely think of other words like “manners” or “decorum” or “civility” (living in a city), a code of appropriate, proper, correct, polite behavior and deportment, the “right way” to do things in short, the rules. ![]() If only we had some sort of guide, a gracious hand gently chaperoning us through the minefield of social customs and mores, leavened with common sense, egalitarianism, and just a soupçon of dry wit, helping us all to be at our best and at our ease in any situation, better company, and better versions of ourselves and our societies.Ī document that changed the world: “Etiquette in Society, in Business, and at Home”, written by Mrs. Oh dear, which fork am I supposed to use? It seems have forever been concocting rules about what to do and not to do in social situations, and thinking badly of others for breaking or not knowing those rules which aren’t written down but everybody else seems to know, and which are either engraved in stone or change by the day, and often wind up becoming exclusive: if you know, you’re in and if you don’t, you’re not. ![]()
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