Manners - are there any you didn't know about until you were older?

[CheeseToastieLove]

Is there anything you didn't realise was bad manners until you were an adult. Things you weren't told when you were young? I didn't realise it was good manners to leave your alcohol at a party when you were leaving until I was in my late 20s. Always took my half full bottle home with me! Cringe. My friend was never taught it was bad manners to start eating before everyone's meals had arrived until she was in her 30s. She was always half finished before everyone had been served.

@Heatherjayne1972

I was brought up in a culture that said if your going somewhere and offer a lift to someone also going there you don’t ask or expect to be asked for petrol money. No matter the distance. Also you’re responsible for getting the person home I had no idea that other people would expect you to offer petrol money or you can’t always assume they’ll bring you home. Cringe

I would be a bit surprised if someone offered or expected petrol money for a short journey. But anything over half an hour I'd offer petrol money or more likely buy them a coffee at our destination or pay for the parking or something like that.

@Gwenhwyfar

"Also when I invite someone to be our guest at a restaurant meal, picking the cheapest thing on the menu and skipping the starter isn't good manners is my book. It is saying I don't think you can afford to feed me."

How is the other person supposed to know you feel like that though? You could easily complain the other way that the person cost you too much money.

But there may not be a starter they like, and the cheapest main might be the thing they want :) Or they may not have a big appetite. I know people who can't cope with a main if they've had a starter.

I have no such trouble :) but I am nevertheless often quite a cheap date as I like salads as a starter and often go for a veggie option which is cheaper.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

I meant to mention the lovely story about the Queen (surely an expert on "etiquette" if ever there was one) hosting a guest who didn't know what a finger bowl was for and drank from it ... so rather than risk him feeling awkward she lifted her own bowl and did exactly the same

And another from the US involving Laura Bush, who received a guest who was horrified to see she was wearing the same dress. Knowing the guest could do nothing about it at that point, the First Lady arranged for a drink to be "spilled" on her own dress so she could go and change

Now, neither of those may have had much to do with "etiquette", but by heck they were good manners, and they shared the crucial point about not making others uncomfortable

The ‘Queen drinking from the finger bowl so as not to discomfit a guest’ is an urban myth, though. It’’s said of Queen Victoria, though the identity/ nationality of the supposed guest varies from the ruler of Afghanistan, the Shah of Persia, an African chieftain, ‘a diplomat’ to ‘a farmer’ but it’s also been said of the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina with Paul Krueger or a ‘ship captain’ as the guest who gets it wrong, and of George W Bush and an entire ‘Asian delegation’ at the White House, AND the Kennedys hosting the Khrushchevs, and probably lots more.

The professional toady Paul Burrell also has a variant about a ‘local prince’ in the South Seas aboard Britannia who put all his fruit and cream into his finger bowl before realising he’d made a faux pas, though the Queen’s supposed response of taking a sip from her finger bowl (rather than making her own fruit soup) doesn’t really fit the occasion.

Basically, it’s a toadying anecdote which is supposedly about the graciousness of ‘true’ rulers, but which is really laughing at oiks and foreigners.

‘Manners make the the man’
It’s poor parenting not to guide children in correct manners.
Those adults who don’t care are not welcome. Those who just don’t know will learn by example.
No Eating or drinking in the street.
Never ask visitors to remove shoes.
USA table etiquette huge no no!
No speaking with a full mouth.
Correct use of cutlery is imperative for for all.

Soup (round spoon) should always be away from the user. Cutlery use in UK manners - never the American version.
Elbows off the table -
Don’t start eating before the hostess.
No talk of religion, politics or sex in polite company. No arguing at the table.
Listen more than talk.
Always compliment the food.
For those who have not been brought up with basic manners can learn by looking and learning.
So easy when you have been taught this as a child.
That’s life!

I was raised on a remote Scottish island and have no clue about etiquette. It really is a different world. Nor do I really care. I have never been, nor do I expect to be, present at a dinner party.

What/pardon never came up at home, it was usually "FFS speak up will you!"

When guests are leaving, you say goodbye at the front door and wait there until they are out of sight. I have always done this as it was drummed into me by my parents, but I'm the only one I know who does. Most say goodbye and shut the door on me straight away.
Also when you drive a friend home after a night out wait until they are in their house before you drive away. Although to be fair, most friends do that too!

Basically, ALL of them.
My parents never had any friends around, my entire childhood.
We never went anywhere (inc family)
So I had no idea how to behave.

I have a friend with 4 children. She was a lecturer, her H a lawyer.
All 4 kids have been raised with excellent manners. They can all tell an interesting anecdote, and put others at ease. Both my kids have Autism, so the difference is astonishing, but it would have been stark between the lawyer kids and my younger self too.
(unfortunately they have also been taught the snobbery gene which is a pity as otherwise they are genuinely delightful).
My manners have been acquired (though I've never really got the hang of 'rounds' in a pub either but I don't go pubbing so that is okay)

Stupidly pointless rules (and knowing that some people apparently still judge and clutch their pearls over them) are so depressing. Just another reason to avoid most people whenever possible.

I respect people who do their best to make the people around them comfortable, don't chew with their mouth open, etc. Beyond that (how someone holds their cutlery, "greetings protocol", and so on), so much of it is ridiculous, tedious, and utterly unimportant. Following customs for your preferred "polite" way of doing things is fine, but using those customs to belittle or sneer at others is petty and disgraceful.

This might be an odd one! I was always taught to say “what?” if I didn’t hear/understand someone -as in, “what did you say?”. When I went to boarding school (aged 7 in the 70s), I was told off for being rude and that I should say “pardon”. My parents were horrified when I came home saying “pardon” and had stern words with the headmistress who, in turn, thought that was an abomination 🤣 I don’t know what happened, but I was never admonished again for saying “what?” at school. I still say it, as do my children.
Re double dipping -it’s just incredibly disgusting and unhygienic 🤮

Cutting the nose off the Brie.

I used to go occasionally on Mums’ nights out (against my better judgement) and hated the ritual of ordering food ‘to share’. Lots of women on diets wasting half-bowls if noodles, rice etc and refusing pudding, but drinking lots of wine. I winced watching the uneaten food taken away and then had to share a bill for an unsatisfactory meal, my glass of Coke and the others’ copious amounts of wine.

Absoluteky understand the manners for making others feel qt ease.

Shock at using "pardon" is just snobbery though?

@MinecraftMother

Cutting the nose off the Brie.

In France they call it "couper le nez".

@spaceghetto

I worked with a lady from Romania and she used to tell me off for saying please. Eg "could you print x doc please? She said it was her job to do it so please was unnecessary. We're really good friends but I find it so jarring when she doesn't say please to me!

Maybe so, but this is the UK and not saying please is rude.

following to learn a thing or two!

“IHaveBrilloHair”
“Eating soup by spooning it from the far side of the bowl, and towards the edge?
Why exactly?”

Like ‘Kindler’ I was taught that it is so you are less likely to get any on your clothes.

I did not know till I was older:
A. “How do you do.”
B. (Replies) “How do you do.”
So it is a statement of greeting g rather than a question and answer.

I did not know that when a buffet is all laid out at a private party you must not go into the room and eat any of the little choice morsels until the host asks everyone to help themselves. (I feel so embarrassed that a hostess had to ask me to ‘please leave it’ once!)

Kissing.....I hope it stops now we have had covid. I once ended up with a class of teeth. I still can’t quite get over that. I did not realise either that most people did air kisses, I thought they were real. I think they are on the Continent. This did not used to be English. I am not sure when it got here.

My grandmother taught me to ‘break my bread’ No cutting a roll. Butter put with the butter knife on the side of the plate and used bit by bit. No laying butter on a whole slice of toast or a roll.

Not read all posts, but there seems to be a "thing" about public transport.
Striking up a conversation with a stranger whilst waiting for a bus, it seems to be impolite to then sit next to them & continue the convo on the bus - pre-plague of course. It's happened more than once.
Or is it just my village?

I haven't read the full post but I learnt most of these in my teens in a "Finishing School" polish type way. I think these are useful things to know although I resented it at the time.

@SavingsQuestions

Absoluteky understand the manners for making others feel qt ease.

Shock at using "pardon" is just snobbery though?

If shock at ‘pardon’ is snobbery, what is shock at using ‘what’?

Shock at "pardon" :) :)

@HeddaGarbled my husband also got told off for taking the entire “nose” off the Brie at a dinner party!

If shock at ‘pardon’ is snobbery, what is shock at using ‘what’?

How do you mean? "What" is correct - why would anyone be shocked at it?

Of all these, the one I see most often is people blowing on their food. It makes me feel really ill. We were taught it was "the height of bad manners,"

I’ll just leave these here,
www.amazon.co.uk/Things-Every-Young-Lady-Should-ebook/dp/B005ENBBGA/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=50+things+a+young+lady+should+know&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1621190303&sr=8-1

www.amazon.co.uk/Things-Every-Young-Gentleman-Should/dp/140160465X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=50+things+a+young+man+should+know&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1621190389&sr=8-1

Nice to give to children, godchildren, nieces and nephews when they are heading into secondary school.

One of our school rules was that we weren't allowed to eat outside in school
Uniform, so if we went to buy lunch in the local town, we had to carry it back to school. We weren't even allowed to sit and eat it, especially if it was McDonald's!!

I had no idea you couldn't just cancel plans if you didn't fancy it. Honest to god. My mum still hasn't got the memo

Knife and fork in the wrong hand ia awful at dinner oartues as you end up with your knife elbow clashing with your left hand fellow diner. I have two "lefties" among my three children and this was one of the two things I trained them to do rigt handed, te other was to play their stringed instruments as ditto bow arms and desk partners.
However my left handed son bats in cricket right handed as he says it feels more natural to him to lead the bat with his dominant hand. Not sure how polite it is though, in batting second, to allow the opponants to set their field for a left hander having already bowled at them as a leftie, to then swing round and ask the umpire for, "middle and off" and chuckle at the scramble to reset! 😂