Mixing Etiquette with Humor

Evidently the photographer was still hanging around when Shelley Winters showed up at the police station to claim her man.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have a slew of etiquette books. I have old, collectable books, vintage books, antiquarian books, and even a few new ones hanging around. My favorites are the vintage etiquette books. I especially love any original tomes by Amy Vanderbilt, Letitia Baldrige and Miss Manners. Those are true gems.

Every once in awhile, I come across an article or blog post referencing new manners or the "new etiquette" for modern living. In reality, the manners and etiquette needed aren't new, but how we spend our daily lives is changing at such a rapid pace, the "old etiquette" just needs a bit of tweaking to adapt. In some cases, the old etiquette still fits just fine.

Anyone who knows me well, also knows I edit and moderate the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia blog. Whenever I am looking for new things to post, or reading submitted articles, I find things that are well written, funny and honestly helpful with regard to "new etiquette." This one is a gem! In our celebrity obsessed culture, this plea for new etiquette, from 1957, was a refreshing reminder of just how innocent the 1950s seemed.

New Book Needed

"MY GOOD deed for this day is a gratis presentation of a million dollar idea to Amy Vanderbilt and her host of imitators. The etiquette authorities, in their eagerness to transform us into a nation of Fauntleroys and Miss Prisses have somehow overlooked a virgin territory ripe for their ministrations. The ladies have prescribed the ground rules for every social contingency (rum apple bobbing to zebra hunting), but they have let their public down woefully on a 'Book of Etiquette As She Is Practiced in Hollywood.'

THERE IS a crying well, maybe, a screaming need for such a tome. Such a volume, if written by Mme. Fearless Fairless, would clear up the justifiable confusions that assail the civilian or non-Hollywood mind when Miss Shelley Winters (the inflammable Bernhardt of the screen), and her fiance, Anthony Franciosa, who is incadescent on his own, became entangled with (1) a news photographer and (2) with the law. The nuances of Hollywood social usage and the delicate shadings of custom in the cinema capital are splendidly illustrated by this fracas and also the necessity of a book that will explain these tribal taboos to outlanders.

TO BEGIN WITH Miss Winters and Franciosa have made no secret of their betrothal in any Broadway or theatre gossip column which would print the word. Nor has the phrase "Festively Top Secret" been stamped on the news that they would be wedded once the fiance was divorced by his wife. Furthermore, Miss Winters has never shown any more repugnance to being photographed by the press than, say, Jayne Mansfield. So when Miss Winters and her fiance went publicly and together to the Superior Court Building in Los Angeles to make an open and public bid on a home in Beverly Hills, a news photographer started to take a routine picture of the pair.

THIS IS WHERE the plot thickens and confusion reigns for us barbarians beyond the hills of Hollywood. The attempt to take a picture of Miss Winters and Franciosa together obviously fractured a strictly cinema social taboo. It caused Franciosa to fall upon the photographer and aim a placekick at his groin. And caused the law to jail Franciosa. "We can't have our pictures taken! He is still getting a divorce!" screamed Miss Winters. "He doesn’t want to be photographed because he doesn't want any scandal!” Sure enough, Franciosa was getting a divorce, on that very day. (Or rather, his wife received such a decree in Reno.)

ANYWAY, there you have the epitome of the delicate social usages that make Hollywood a trap for the unwary and a book of etiquette a necessity. Apparently, one of the basic rules says that if one is engaged to a man in the process of getting a divorce, it is all right to say it in print but not in pictures. That would constitute scandal. Of course, any book of etiquette is one-tenth politesse and nine-tenths anthropology. So my nominee as the author to tackle Hollywood's etiquette problems is Anthropologist Margaret Mead. Her study of the natives of Samoa made her world famous and ought to prepare her handsomely for research among the Holly-woodenheads." — Inez Robb for The Dessert Sun, May 4, 1957

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is generally annoyed by pleas for "new etiquette." Oh yes, and she edits the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia blog that you can read

here.

Teaching Children Etiquette in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Teaching children etiquette is an art, as well as, a science.  These patented items below, are for teaching children how to eat properly and designed to instill good table manners. The patents show a historical standpoint of attempting to not only design but teach. And the rules still do matter today. Enjoy!

 

Oh... and for all those who have emailed me; Next post will be a continuation of the fabulously fickle, Miss May Van Alen, and her wild, Gilded Age romance saga.

These 2 forks were specifically designed to teach a child how to eat properly.  You nay be thinking, "Those are simply 'youth-sized' forks." And they are youth sized forks, but looking on the back sides of them, tells another story...

I have lightened the photo up a bit, so that you can see top one reads, "For the Left Hand".  The lower fork has a "finger guide" for a child to place his or her finger into, though the artist at the time, drew the illustration with the wrong hand using the fork.

A "child training fork" in the left hand

Eliza showing correct hands for the knife and fork, while still practicing technique.  The plate below was designed with a variety of children added to the plate as it was made.  All have marked where a child's fork and spoon would go, however the patent itself is vague.

"Etiquette spoons," a training fork and other youth utensils.

 

Though these spoons were not new, being marketed as "Etiquette Spoons" was new in the late 1800s.

What I Did on My Summer Staycation, Part 1 and Why Demita Usher Will be Guest Blogging

A week or so ago, some of you noticed that Demita Usher, a "guest blogger" was announced on my blog.  To those of you who asked; Yes, I am still recovering. and No, I am still not throwing in the towel on my health just yet. Do let me explain...


Many of you know I have had a challenging summer that has continued on into fall. Each of the past few years has been a doozy, however this past summer was particularly strange (hosting a birthday party and having to go to bed just as the guests were arriving? Yes, that was a fun evening! Missed the whole party. The next day I heard everyone had a great time though, and I didn't wind up in the ER.) All that being said, this past summer was particularly wonderful too! That is what I am going to focus on.  In three parts.  Let Part One begin...

Demita Usher of Demita's School of Social Graces and Savoir Faire

It all actually started one evening in late May. Most everyone had left from a family birthday dinner for my son when my phone rang. We were all settling in to watch a movie downstairs, but I took the call upstairs, saying I'd only be on the phone a few minutes.  

Three hours later, (yes three!) I came back downstairs. The first thing my son said was, "Mom... You were on the phone for three hours!" I agreed, yes, I certainly had been. Then I went on to tell him that I had just had an incredible conversation with someone exactly like me. "She thinks exactly like me! It was so strange to talk with someone and feel an instant connection. We could finish each others' sentences." Cliff asked if she was an etiquette instructor. I told him no, that she wasn't, but wants to be and that she had acquired an amazing collection of etiquette books over the years and even had the Wendy Ward Charm School record albums! I didn't even know they had made albums! My big sister only had the book. I was impressed.

Training and getting to know Demita has been an incredible delight. She is like the identical twin sister I never had, if that identical twin sister was 3 inches taller, black and about 16 years younger than me. Oh yes, and if my twin was engaged to be married and moving to Europe next year, which grieves me to no end. Friends who have moved only one or two states away are hard enough to see, but another continent? I am guessing we will have to curtail the 3 hour phone conversations.


For weeks we have been having one or two marathon 14 hour days together, during which we work, discuss etiquette, discuss history, she picks my brain and I make suggestions on films and books, etc...  She has been with me on doctor appointments, medication runs, physical therapy appointments, helps me with grocery shopping, etc... We eat, watch movies and t.v. shows pertinent to etiquette (yes... there was that one Grey's Anatomy episode that I slipped in, but she enjoyed it just the same). We did go to see "The Help", the first movie I had seen in a theater in four years. I had been wanting her to meet my daughter, and as she is here so little of the time lately, I jumped at the opportunity to put the three of us together when my daughter had the odd afternoon off.


After a long discussion of the movie, and with Demita so understanding of my health situation, along with wanting to immerse herself in etiquette and the whole surrounding culture as much as possible, I asked and she agreed to guest blog on all of the movies, books and other reading material I have been recommending. The first movie and book Demita thought of covering was "The Help". 

And while I am on the subject please allow me to thank Monica, the substitute teacher I met by chance at Gebhart International, who offered me her hard copy of the book as I had not yet read it.  Said she cheerfully, "I have the book in my car and was going to drop it off as a donation somewhere. Would you like it?  It is really good." So many, many thanks to Monica!

But it was the discussion of another movie that Demita asked me about which led to her first review, comparing two different films portraying similar social issues and the pressures that social forces and "the accepted norm" place on women and men in society. I will be posting her review tomorrow. In the meantime, you can enjoy Demita's humor regarding something from Emily Post's first book. 


She has a copy, as do I, of the well-known blue book on etiquette. She hadn't read a lot of it though, which started a discussion of my favorite authors on etiquette (Amy Vanderbilt and Letitia Baldridge... the real stuff, not the revised-by-someone-else stuff) and I shared with her one of the many funny bits I had found in Emily's well known work.  This line nearly always bring me to tears with laughter. In a section on dinner table etiquette, Emily in her first book gave this admonishment, "Saucers for vegetables are contrary to all etiquette." "Huh?!?", was my first response upon reading the missive. Seriously?  Saucers for vegetables are contrary to all etiquette? That makes no sense whatsoever.

I can see if one is hosting a dinner party, that throwing food at one's guests would be contrary to all etiquette. Or insulting one's guests would be contrary to all etiquette.  In fact, I can think of at least a hundred and one other things that would be "contrary to all etiquette." Dishes for the vegetables don't come to mind as being something so heinous. Demita sent me this later that evening when she had gotten home-
  

"Saucers for vegetables are contrary to all things etiquette." I can see it now...........
 

Circa 1920's

Mrs. Noseintheair: Did you hear about the Kelly's girl? 

Mrs. Oneupmanship: No! What happened? 

Mrs. Noseintheair: Her mother served vegetables on saucers now no man will court her much less marry her.

Mrs. Oneupmanship: Heavens to Betsy! I hope it passes, otherwise future generations will never live it down.
 

Present Day 

Muffy: OMG did you hear about Tiffany?
Binky: Nooooo! What happend?

Muffy: Her dad tried to join the local country club but they denied him admission, something about his great grandmother and some vegetable saucers or something.

Binky: The nerve of SOME people. Well thank God they caught him before our good clubs name was ruined. By the way does this thong bikini make my behind look big? I don't want to look like a tramp sitting by the pool at the club. 
I loved it! I believe you will enjoy her guest blogging.


Next up... Part Two, with training my first instructor to teach etiquette in Saudi Arabia, the charming Rola Yassine.

Maura Graber & Rola Yassine