Category Archives: Etiquette History

Thank Goodness Prohibition Happened And Gave Us These Modern Drinking Habits

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As much as the idea of prohibition seems ridiculous to me now, over the years I’ve come to appreciate the fact that it was enforced in America from 1919-1933. In the 1820s, Americans drank about four gallons of 200 proof alcohol per capita.That is far too much alcohol, you guys! Yes, banning it and sending unregulated production underground was not a good idea, but it basically halved our alcohol consumption once it was legal again. Plus it paved the way for all sorts of innovation in cocktails since the bootleg liquor was so gross. It wasn’t for nothing.

In Perfect Behavior (a parody etiquette guide published 1922) by Donald Ogden Stewart, the chapter “The Etiquette of Dinners and Balls” suggests some opening lines to get conversation going. For instance, when cocktails are served, you may remark on how terrible the gin is, and then offer the tidbit “Senator Volstead [of the Volstead Act, aka The National Prohibition Act] was born Sept. 4 1869.” Stewart also jokes about alcohol consumption in “Etiquette for Dry Agents”:

In spite of the great pride and joy which we Americans feel over the success of National Prohibition; in spite of the universal popularity of the act and the method of its enforcement; in spite of the fact that it is now almost impossible to obtain in any of our ex saloons anything in the least resembling whiskey or gin,– there still remains the distressing suspicion that quite possibly, at some of the dinner parties and dances of our more socially prominent people, liquor–or its equivalent–is openly being served. . . .The main difficulty has been, I believe, that the average dry agent is too little versed in customs and manners of polite society. It is lamentably true that too often has a carefully planned society dry raid been spoiled because the host noticed that one of his guests was wearing white socks with a black tie, or that the intruder was using his dessert spoon on the hors d’oeuvres.

That’s just some beautiful backhanded insulting right there. He goes on to suggest that we need to attract a higher class of dry agent, which may be difficult, given that most preparatory schools teach young men to frown upon “pussyfooting and sneaking.”

Some etiquette books of the time suggested hosts obey the law and serve nonalcoholic drinks at parties, but according to Spirits of Defiance: National Prohibition and Jazz Age Literature, 1920-1933, most people treated hosts who didn’t serve alcohol as “uncouth, emasculating, or even cowardly.” Perfect Behavior suggests that alcohol consumption was a bit of an open secret. When I worked at the New-York Historical Society we presented an exhibition on beer and brewing in New York. During prohibition, many breweries were forced to close or make non-alcoholic malt tonics. One brewing company found a way to help get alcohol into the hands of consumers with a sneaky advisory on the label: “Caution: Do not ferment, do not add yeast, or you will create beer.”

If our depictions of the Roaring 20s are to be believed, Prohibition just made alcohol cool, along with creating a culture of concealment and necessity. If there was alcohol around, you better drink as much as you can, because you don’t know when you’ll be drinking again. According to No Nice Girl Swears by Alice-Leone Moats (published in 1933), this actually meant that learning how to deal with drunk people became part of common culture. “When our mothers came out, learning to handle a drunk was not an essential part of a debutante’s education,” she wrote. “Now every girl has to be capable not only of shifting for herself, but, more often than not, of looking out for her escort as well.” This was doubly true because most speakeasies were co-ed, whereas before prohibition bars and saloons had been strictly for men. According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, “Enforcement of the Volstead Act diminished the prominence of all-male saloons and unintentionally encouraged the development of more expensive speakeasies patronized by men and women. After repeal, heterosocial drinking patterns persisted.”

Prohibition may have also created one of my favorite types of get togethers–the cocktail party. Now merely having alcohol was cause for celebration, and guests may be so excited by it that a sit-down dinner is not required. “Cocktail parties have become the line of least resistance in entertaining. They are convenient for the person who must get 50 or 60 people off the list of obligations and prefers to do it at one fell swoop, saving money at the same time. It certainly isn’t much trouble; all you need is a case of synthetic gin and a tin of anchovy paste. The greater the number of the guests, the smaller and more airless the room, the stronger the gin, the more successful the party. But if you give one, you must be prepared to have your friends on your hands until two in the morning, as they will invariably forget their dinner engagements and stay on until the last shakerful is emptied.”

Nowadays if you drink alcohol, things like cocktail parties, women in bars, and heterosocial drinking are all taken for granted. So is the idea that, even if you get completely shitfaced, you should probably be a little discreet about it. And for that we have Prohibition to thank! Just please, never again.

Best Lines in Emily Post’s Etiquette

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BAD FORM! Captain Hook has literally nothing to do with Emily Post, but I think they would agree.

Emily Post published her book, Etiquette in 1922 and it was an immediate best seller, partially because it contained excellent advice and partially because it was wittily written. Some of Emily’s witticisms remain so today while some are humorously outdated. I’ve combed through the first half of the book and pulled out some of my favorites (there may be a follow up with the second half of the book…let me know in the comments if you want more!)

  • “Saccharine chirpings should be classed with crooked little fingers, high hand-shaking and other affectations. All affectations are bad form.”
  • “Who does not dislike a “boneless” hand extended as though it were a spray of sea-weed, or a miniature boiled pudding? It is equally annoying to have one’s hand clutched aloft in grotesque affectation and shaken violently sideways, as though it were being used to clean a spot out of the atmosphere. What woman does not wince at the viselike grasp that cuts her rings into her flesh and temporarily paralyzes every finger?”
  • “Nothing is so easy for any woman to acquire as a charming bow. It is such a short and fleeting duty. Not a bit of trouble really; just to incline your head and spontaneously smile as though you thought “Why, there is Mrs. Smith! How glad I am to see her!””
  • “Whether in a private carriage, a car or a taxi, a lady must never sit on a gentleman’s left; because according to European etiquette, a lady “on the left” is not a “lady.” Although this etiquette is not strictly observed in America, no gentleman should risk allowing even a single foreigner to misinterpret a lady’s position.” [Ed: Heaven forbid!!]
  • “Why a man, because he has millions, should assume that they confer omniscience in all branches of knowledge, is something which may be left to the psychologist to answer, but most of those thrown much in contact with millionaires will agree that an attitude of infallibility is typical of a fair majority.” [Ed: Eat the rich!]
  • “Not so many years ago, a lady or gentleman, young girl or youth, who failed to pay her or his “party call” after having been invited to Mrs. Social-Leader’s ball was left out of her list when she gave her next one. For the old-fashioned hostess kept her visiting list with the precision of a bookkeeper in a bank; everyone’s credit was entered or cancelled according to the presence of her or his cards in the card receiver. Young people who liked to be asked to her house were apt to leave an extra one at the door, on occasion, so that theirs should not be among the missing when the new list for the season was made up—especially as the more important old ladies were very quick to strike a name off, but seldom if ever known to put one back.”
  • “In a ball dress a lady of distinction never leans back in a chair; one can not picture a beautiful and high-bred woman, wearing a tiara and other ballroom jewels, leaning against anything. This is, however, not so much a rule of etiquette as a question of beauty and fitness.”
  • “Acceptances or regrets are always written. An engraved form to be filled in is vulgar—nothing could be in worse taste than to flaunt your popularity by announcing that it is impossible to answer your numerous invitations without the time-saving device of a printed blank.” [Ed: Oh man, aren’t you glad we can just text now?]
  • “But the “mansion” of bastard architecture and crude paint, with its brass indifferently clean, with coarse lace behind the plate glass of its golden-oak door, and the bell answered at eleven in the morning by a butler in an ill fitting dress suit and wearing a mustache, might as well be placarded: “Here lives a vulgarian who has never had an opportunity to acquire cultivation.”” [Ed: I am absolutely bringing back the term “vulgarian.”]
  • “Be very careful though. Do not mistake modern eccentricities for “art.” There are frightful things in vogue to-day—flamboyant colors, grotesque, triangular and oblique designs that can not possibly be other than bad, because aside from striking novelty, there is nothing good about them.”
  • “The fact that you live in a house with two servants, or in an apartment with only one, need not imply that your house lacks charm or even distinction, or that it is not completely the home of a lady or gentleman.” [Ed: But Emily, can my home be the home of a lady if I have NO servants? Asking for a friend.]
  • “The garden party is merely an afternoon tea out of doors. It may be as elaborate as a sit-down wedding breakfast or as simple as a miniature strawberry festival.” [Ed: Nothing about a miniature strawberry festival sounds simple.]
  • “If your house has a great Georgian dining-room, the table should be set with Georgian or an earlier period English silver” [Ed: Obviously.]
  • “As soon as the guests are seated and the first course put in front of them, the butler goes from guest to guest on the right hand side of each, and asks “Apollinaris or plain water!” and fills the goblet accordingly. In the same way he asks later before pouring wine: “Cider, sir?” “Grape fruit cup, madam?” Or in a house which has the remains of a cellar, “Champagne?” or “Do you care for whiskey and soda, sir?”” [Ed: This is funny because the book was written during Prohibition, and you don’t really think, when thinking about Prohibition, about the consequences for etiquette- what do you do with all your different wine glasses and what do you serve with a fancy dinner?]
  • “A guest helps himself with his fingers and lays the roll or bread on the tablecloth, always. No bread plates are ever on a table where there is no butter, and no butter is ever served at a dinner.” [Ed: A dinner with no butter sounds really sad to me. Not even butter in fancy shapes? Or are fancy shapes nouveau riche?]
  • “Pie, however, is not a “company” dessert. Ice cream on the other hand is the inevitable conclusion of a formal dinner.” [Ed: Ice cream had literally JUST been invented, so I will give them a break here.]
  • “No matter where it is used, the finger bowl is less than half filled with cold water; and at dinner parties, a few violets, sweet peas, or occasionally a gardenia, is put in it. (A slice of lemon is never seen outside of a chop-house where eating with the fingers may necessitate the lemon in removing grease. Pretty thought!)”

Let’s Talk About Ms.

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You do not know if Ms. Marvel is married from her title

You do not know if Ms. Marvel is married from her title

We’ve already addressed honorifics, but for some reason I keep seeing people confused about Ms.! So now you all get a primer.

To understand Ms., let’s think about Mr. If someone is introduced to you as “Mr. Gary Noodlebaker,” what do you know about them? You know they identify as male, and…that’s pretty much it. You don’t know if he’s married or single, if that’s his birth name, or anything about his profession. You just know he’s male. Ms. operates similarly, and can be used by any woman. As “Ms. Jaya Saxena,” you know I identify as a woman, and that’s it. I could be married, I could be single, but that’s not revealed by my title. This is great.

However, there are a few other options for women, since marital status is something that’s been treated as more important for women than for men. Miss is the honorific generally used for young, unmarried women. (Master is sometimes used for young boys in the UK, but it’s not as common as Miss.) Mrs. is used when a woman is married and has taken her husband’s last name, but even then she can still use Ms., it just becomes a matter of preference. Some people think it’s a generational thing, but I’ve met many younger married women who have taken their husbands last names and prefer Mrs. However, you do not have to use Mrs. once you are married., so I do believe that when in doubt you should use Ms.

Also, if a woman has married and hasn’t taken her husband’s last name, you use Ms. This seems to confuse a lot of people, who think that something has to change about the way you address a woman when she gets married. But considering nothing has to change about a man’s name, the same goes for women!

So what’s so confusing? According to Wikipedia, “Mrs originated as a contraction of the honorific Mistress, the feminine of Mister, or Master, which was originally applied to both married and unmarried women. The split into Mrs for married women from Ms and Miss began during the 17th century.”  Ms. fell out of use as an honorific, but in 1901 an article in The Sunday Republican suggested reviving the title to avoid the etiquette faux-pas of calling a woman by the wrong title. By having a “more comprehensive term which does homage to the sex without expressing any views as to their domestic situation,” we avoid calling a 16-year-old girl Mrs., or a married lady Miss. Ms. didn’t really get going until the mid 20th-century, but clearly it fills a void. The usages of Miss, Mrs. and Ms. have been the norm for quite some time, and if you insist on going by archaic, 16th-century usages of everything then you have other issues you need to deal with.

On a different note, I’m curious to see if and how this will change as same-sex marriage becomes more common. For instance, if two men get married and want to change their titles to something that indicates it, or if two women marry and don’t want to use Mrs. but still want to show they’re married. Or if gender-nonconforming people come up with titles that are completely different (performance artist Justin Vivian Bond uses “Mx” and I love it). Traditions and usage are fluid, and our job as polite people is to make the best effort we can to use everyone’s preferred titles without driving ourselves crazy. And remember, if you’re not sure JUST ASK. It’s always polite to ask.

Is Staying Up Late Rude?

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Maybe people are afraid they will find their guests hiding under the bed while they sleep. Via

Dear Uncommon Courtesy,

So my dad kept getting in trouble for staying up late at my grandmother’s house and reading at night. Nana would see him, just reading and get angry and start yelling at him.

Tonight my other Nana mentioned that she hates being awake in a house that everyone’s sleeping in. That it is rude- people will think you’ve been nosing around.

So! Is this a generational thing? Are you not supposed to stay up while others are sleeping? Not even, like, staying up making noise, but just staying up in general? My parents hadn’t heard of it- but this was an apparent learned thing for my grandparents.

Sincerely,

Wide Awake

Official Etiquette

There is no official etiquette because this is nonsense.

Our Take

Jaya: What on earth is Nana talking about?

Victoria: Made up nonsense! So basically, shes saying that its rude to stay up later than everyone else in the house even if you are just in your room and being quiet because it seems like you are being sneaky?

Jaya: Yeah, which, I don’t understand how you practically apply this if you’re not the only person in your house. Even if you’re in your room, some people like to stay up and read! Or are just not tired yet! The first searches for this on Google bring up like, hostel etiquette.

Victoria: Seriously. Although, I do find it weird when I am the only person awake and I feel like I am in some kind of post apocalyptic world where I am the last human on earth…but maybe that’s just me.

Jaya: No I totally get that.

Victoria: I do think that if you are a guest in someone’s home, you should retire to your room or couch or something when the hosts go to bed. Though you don’t necessarily have to sleep- as long as you are ready to wake up whenever you need to be awake for the next days activities. I also think, as a house guest, you should try not to sleep in toooooo much longer than the hosts- unless the host knows they get up ridiculously early and tells you to sleep til whenever.

Jaya: Yeah, and obviously that depends on your relationship to the hosts. This sort of addresses it. It is sort of awkward if I wake up way earlier than everyone and am wandering around.

Victoria: And yeah, obviously depending on your relationship. I mean, in your parents house, even if you are visiting, you are still family and can do what you want.

Jaya: But I cannot imagine freaking out if I had a guest, said I was going to bed, and they were like “ok I’m gonna stay up and read a bit.”

Victoria: Hahah yeah! For sure, that’s kind of rude. You want to make your guests comfortable!

Jaya: Also, if you as the host are asleep, how would you even know others are awake and nosing around? You’re sleeping!

Victoria: Yeah! Although, my mom claims she could tell when me and my sister were home or not when she was asleep.

Jaya: Unless you’re pretending to sleep to see if your guests also sleep and then surprise them when they don’t sleep, which is just creepy.

Victoria: Yeah, although, if you live in a small place, it’s conceivable that you can see a tiny bit of the light or sense movement, but still, who cares?

Jaya: True. And obviously you shouldn’t be up partying or watching TV loudly or whatever. Man, most etiquette things I can see where they come from, and this one I really can’t. Unless you live in a mansion and have strangers as guests all the time. It’s another case of like, weird etiquette rules when, generally, you know and like the people you have at your house. Your son is not trying to steal your silver.

Victoria: I mean, it probably comes from a time when people had more house guests or some weird derivation from the English country house party. I mean, Emily Post is full of etiquette for visiting people in the country, who you don’t really know super well. But yeah, still even there, there’s not really anything about this.

The Cut Direct: The Fiercest Etiquette Punishment

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Go watch Charlie the Unicorn if you never have.

Did you guys know that there is something that you can do when someone is so unspeakably rude that you can no longer bear to be in their presence? It is only to be used in the most dire of etiquette circumstances because it is a very cruel thing to do someone who doesn’t deserve it. You can cut someone (not with a knife!). Basically you completely ignore them to their face. A version of the silent treatment, as it were. If you look straight at someone, especially at their greeting, and do not acknowledge them in any way, then you are cutting them.

The cut direct goes back a long time- it developed during the Regency period (Jane Austen times) and could be much more socially devastating than just one person ignoring another. There were also a lot of rules that went along with it:

  • To be a true cut, the cutter had to be so deliberate and obvious about it that the cuttee could have no doubt about what was happening.
  • A gentleman was never to cut a lady, no matter what she had done.
  • Gentlemen had to be particularly careful about cutting other gentlemen, as the snub could lead to the challenge of a duel.
  • Unmarried ladies were not to cut married ladies.
  • Hosts could not cut their guests (why had they invited them in the first place?)
  • Social leaders had to be very cautious in using it, as their use of it could very well destroy a person socially (if you are completely ostracized from Society, then you ruin all of your marriage prospects and/or your children’s marriage prospects, and since at the time, marriage was a consolidation of wealth and power- then you would have none. Not to mention having no friends and basically no where to go and nothing to do.) Famously, the Prince of Wales cut Beau Brummel publicly and it actually backfired on him because Beau hadn’t really done anything dreadful and everyone felt that the Prince was abusing his power shamefully.

A cut direct must be employed only when someone has done something truly horrible and everyone in your social circle knows it. Otherwise it will make you look petty and cruel.