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.

I was never taught how to give and receive compliments. A skill I am still learning. Difficult balance to make it sound sincere.

@DandelionRose
“I think genuinely posh people (as it were) can afford (as it were) to do away with some commonplace manners and can happily say What instead of Pardon“

It is a misconception in the first place that, “What” is rude. It never was, nor intended to be, rude. It is as simple a word as it is possible to have, meaning exactly what is says.

“Pardon” in its place is completely unnecessary. Ironically, it is “ pardon” that aimed to be posh, slightly French perhaps.
As so many people think “What” is rude though it is now more difficult to use it without causing offence.

It is like “Toilet” instead of “lavatory”, “passed away” instead of died, “serviette” instead to d “napkin”.

@Donitta

I was always taught you don’t touch the food on your plate unless you’re going to eat it. So you break off a bit of bread and butter it but don’t touch the rest of the bread. You eat from the side of your pile of rice or potato one forkful at a time but you don’t stir the whole lot around or mix foods together on your plate. If you want a bit of rice and curry together on your fork then you pick up a bit of each, you do NOT mix it on the plate.

I imagine this partly stems from the grossness of visibly mixing food on your plate; mixing should happen in your mouth and nobody wants to see you stirring your food into baby mush. But it’s also because we were very poor and there wasn’t enough food, so if there was untouched food left on your plate someone else could eat it, whereas if you’d touched it and buttered it and stirred it then it had to go in the bin. So in the days when a lot more families were poor I can see why it was rude to touch food you weren’t going to eat. Interestingly the same applied to very rich people whose leftovers historically would have been eaten by servants. The middle classes who have plenty of food and just throw away leftovers have no qualms about mixing and touching all of the food on their plate.

Apart from the religious background for breaking bread, this is the best explanation I have seen. I think you are spot on .

And agree you don't cut more than one piece at a time.

I went to a work event at the house of lords once. There was a selection of drinks on offer including bottles of beer. One of the peers was disgusted that I was drinking from the bottle (there were no glasses!) - I can't remember what exactly he said and I kind of laughed it off but he was deadly serious.
My fil (in his 70s) still hasn't learnt many manners such as waiting for everyone to have their food, eating more than his fair share, eating with his mouth open. Thank goodness that his son is better!!!

DH told me after we moved in together when you put your cutlery on your plate at the end of a meal, the cutting edge of the knife should face inwards, towards the fork. I had no idea about this.

@ComtesseDeSpair
“I’ve never understood why “loo” is more correct than “toilet”. It’s always said that toilet is undesirable because anything involving a word with Francophone connotations is generally a bit of an aspirational working class affectation; but on this rationale, “loo” doesn’t make sense - it derives from the French “guardez l'eau” so how is it less affected and working class (apparently) than toilet?“

I completely agree.

@Dizzybet74

I went to a work event at the house of lords once. There was a selection of drinks on offer including bottles of beer. One of the peers was disgusted that I was drinking from the bottle (there were no glasses!) - I can't remember what exactly he said and I kind of laughed it off but he was deadly serious. My fil (in his 70s) still hasn't learnt many manners such as waiting for everyone to have their food, eating more than his fair share, eating with his mouth open. Thank goodness that his son is better!!!

Pointing out what you perceive as poor manners is very poor manners but I've no idea what the rules are in the HoL so what do I know? From the accounts of new MPs I have read in the papers, I think there are many layers of unwritten rules there, and in the HofC , designed to make newcomers feel inferior.

Fwiw I was told never to drink from a beer bottle because of rats running about in the cellars and and peeing on them or worse!

@Sssloou

Similarly the nose of the cheese thing - maybe the host hasn’t left it out long enough at room temp for it all to be the “best bit” - seems impossible to sliver off a slice and still leave best bits for others.

It's nothing to do with temperature. Cheeses such as brie as made as wheels of cheese, the middle of which is the most tender, most flavoursome part. Slicing along the length ensures that everyone gets to enjoy the cheese as it should be enjoyed.

@Ifeelsuchafool

You win the thread for raising by far the most obscure question of etiquette:
“ 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! ”

As so many people think “What” is rude though it is now more difficult to use it without causing offence

If people take offence because I say ‘what’ rather than ‘pardon’ then they’re very easily offended.

[quote ScrollingLeaves]@ComtesseDeSpair
“I’ve never understood why “loo” is more correct than “toilet”. It’s always said that toilet is undesirable because anything involving a word with Francophone connotations is generally a bit of an aspirational working class affectation; but on this rationale, “loo” doesn’t make sense - it derives from the French “guardez l'eau” so how is it less affected and working class (apparently) than toilet?“

I completely agree.[/quote]
In fairness, I think the etymology is very disputed -- there are also claims that 'loo' derives from 'lieux d'aisance' or 'Waterloo', or from 'leeward' on a boat, or from 'bourdalou' (portable potties carried by 18thc French women, which migrated to the Netherlands as a term), and a bunch of others, including a probably mythical tale of a 19thc Anglo-Irish houseparty where someone stuck Aunt Louisa's visiting card on the bathroom door.

The first usage the OED lists is in James Joyce's Ulysses, published in 1922, and it went more mainstream in the 1930s, but no one's satisfactorily found a compelling origin.

This is a decent round-up of the various theories:
blog.oup.com/2007/04/loo/

Regarding the House of Lords: it is mistaken to think that the HoL is made up solely of hereditary peers. There are plenty of peers who were enobled because they were party loyalists, party donors, industry experts etc.

It IS a minefield, esp in the UK.
I was brought up with almost no manners / etiquette & also no idea how to make small talk / give & receive complements / say 'no' politely etc.
I have made some progress but not as much as I should have probably.
I now have 2 children with Autism. Their idea of 'rude' is not to tell the truth - so they would see it as rude not to tell someone they had snot on their face / had got fat since they last saw them / were smoking (as 'that's stupid') for example. Their table manners drive me crazy but they are affected by their sensory issues so I understand that.

It is tricky to get the balance between teaching them that they can be 'totally themselves' at home but it is wise to make some concessions to 'NT manners' when out and about when their Mother needs to sometimes Google what NT manners are (I'm not ASD just common!)

For example, John Prescott accepted a peerage in 2010. He is no one's idea of posh.

ScrollingLeaves with What though, it's harder to make it sound like a light polite question "What?" and instead sounds and is generally treated as What, a statement which sounds rude and careless.

Whereas Pardon sounds like a question in itself, just by the nature of syllables and stress on the "Par" with the "don" rising. It sounds like the person is inviting a repeat of what wasn't heard, rather than flatly demanding a repeat. "What" sounds ruder for being a flat single syllable word.

Some interesting posts on bread.
I thought it was the norm in a lot of working class households for mother to cut and butter all the bread, at least at teatime, so nobody took too much butter. I think my grandmothers did that. Anyone else remember that?

I can't bare people saying toilet. Loo is also horrible. I say bathroom as in "where's the bathroom" I don't think I was taught it as manners as such but just seems to be better manners to me.

I guess it's because you could be doing something in the bathroom like powdering your nose or fixing your lipstick. Saying toilet seems to highlight the fact you're going there to have a wee. Or worse!

God I sound like an uptight bitch

On the subject of thank you letters, I once read that F Scott Fitzgerald taught his daughter not only to write to thank whoever had given her something, but to also write to a mutual friend mentioning in passing her delight at what she had been given. What consideration!

I did not know till I was older that it is rude to pluck off some grapes from a communal bunch of grapes rather than break off a group from the stem. ( If there are scissors it is easier to guess they should be used though.)

I did not know about the cheese cutting till later but it makes sense.

It was only from this thread that I heard about “Would you like some salt?” When you would like it yourself. Passing salt and pepper together was something I only heard recently.

Eating in the street is part of a rushed, can’t wait, give-it-to-me-now, trend in society. It doesn’t look very nice and must be a less healthy way to eat than at least looking for a bench and trying to enjoy it. Of course people often really are in a rush, or forgot to eat a meal and get very hungry.

I say bathroom too. I don’t like toilet or loo!

@ScrollingLeaves It was only from this thread that I heard about “Would you like some salt?” When you would like it yourself.

It may perhaps have been polite at some point? but to me it's the most rude passive aggressive way. I grew up with this from one parent (who thought it was hilarious) and it was absolutely pa. Only respons to that is yes/no on my own behalf, if they want it, ask for it.

I hate it when people use the word bathroom instead of toilet. A bathroom has a bath in it!!

I w realised recently that often when someone asks me if I would like something, they mean they want it themselves!

@Donitta

Sometimes people cut all of their food up first. Others cut their food up as they go along. There is no standard expectation. No, it is always rude to cut all of your food up. Europeans cut one piece then eat it with the fork in the left hand. Americans cut one piece then put the knife down, switch the fork to the right hand then eat it. It is always rude to cut more than one piece at a time.

This is what I was taught and what I taught my children. I use the British/Continental method for the most part, having lived in the UK, but when I do use the American method, it's cut, switch fork to right hand , eat, repeat for each bite, not cut everything and then switch and eat. The constant switching is what makes the European method more appealing.

@mermaidsariel

I w realised recently that often when someone asks me if I would like something, they mean they want it themselves!

I get it if it's something we would then share - e.g. 'do you fancy stopping for a coffee?' to mean 'I would like to stop for a coffee, do you agree?' but I find it weird with something like a salt cellar where the request is for me to give it away from me to them. But I suppose I might say 'are you finished with the salt?' to mean 'can I use the salt now?' which is quite similar. But if someone said that to me I'd say 'oh I'm not using it, go ahead' but not necessarily realise they actually wanted me to pass it!

We don't do the "would you care for the salt" thing in my part of the US. You say "Please pass the salt" or similar. What is done is to keep the salt and pepper together so you pass both.