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 sat opposite someone who ate with their mouth open, revolting!

The one I find weird is the parent bustling off with the birthday child’s present! Surely you open it up there and then for the mutual enjoyment of all? Lots of people did this I never did!

AbsolutelyPatsy How rude.

The best advice I have ever been given was by a lovely old Etonian (a regular at Palace and diplomatic events) who said whenever he enters a room of people, he looks around to see who is alone or looking awkward and he makes a beeline for them and makes them feel at home. He wouldn't have given a monkeys how someone held their knife, he was too busy making sure everyone felt comfortable.
Oh and he said "sorry" if he misheard, not what or pardon.

If they bump into you fine, that's not good, but if they don't, I don't see the problem! I can't even say that I've noticed others' cutlery habits. Too busy enjoying the food and company.

I never knew you are supposed to say "you're welcome" after someone says thank you until my late 20s. It was a revelation at the time for me.

regarding salting food at a dinner party - if salt (and pepper) is on the table when you sit down to eat, then you are free to use it. I wouldn't ask for it extra either before or after tasting.

I hesitate to say that someone’s manners are incorrect! But polyglot, on introductions you are mistaken. The inferior is introduced to the superior, the man to the woman. This is because (in actual Victorian society), the privilege of acquaintance is something bestowed on the recipient. It was not a privilege to a duke to have the acquaintance of a shopkeeper, but it was for the shopkeeper (for example). Likewise with men/women - women had few powers, but declining to know someone was one of them. The other fundamental aspect of it was that the superior or the lady had the right to reject the acquaintance: hence the standard wording of introductions was ‘may I introduce Smith to you’ - to which the answer could perfectly acceptably be ‘no, thank you’.

FHB isn’t exclusively UC - Peter Kay has a bit about it in his material about wedding buffets. My sister and I will hiss at each other FHB, WE’RE NOT PIGS in any social situation with a buffet

That's just a variation on offering to guests first though isn't it, fairly universal I would have thought.

But I put the knife and fork down together neatly, tines upwards, at the 5.25 position and was publicly reprimanded that it should be the 6.30 position this is the sort of thing that Really. Does. Not. Matter.

Yes to putting your knife and fork together neatly on the plate to signify you have finished, but no to being pointlessly picky about exactly how they are arranged.

DIshedUp
Rules as in manners are there to make life easier.
How many posters on here were helping themselves to the nicest bit of the cheese because it didn’t occur to them not to. Manners mean everyone gets a nice bit.
Putting your cutlery in the agreed position means everyone knows when you’ve finished so plates can be cleared. Not just with waiters, you can see if you need to eat faster or whatever.
Agreed greetings in whatever form.
Anyone can be annoying.

@AbsolutelyPatsy

if you are all sitting around the table and the person next to you is holding the knife and fork in the wrong hand, they might bump into your arms, is what i was told

Or they're just left handed? I suppose in snobby polite circles, that's considered rude too?

HeyGirlHeyBoy
The thing is, you aren't wrong, but wouldn't you want to know how to hold them correctly anyway?
It's also generally the easiest and most efficient way.

Also, and I know this is my issue but HKLP, just no.

BTW, at home I almost always use just a fork, and eat on the couch in front of the TV, but I can use cutlery correctly when I need/want to and I don't think having that knowledge is a bad thing.

@AbsolutelyPatsy

My ds latest GF used the cutlery the wrong way round, and I noticed and considered, was she left handed or just bad mannered?

It depends on if she held the knife and fork correctly, even if the wrong way round! If held "correctly" (tines on the fork facing down, with first finger along the length and same with the knife facing down with first finger along the length) then it suggests she has been taught the polite/correct way to use a knife and fork but personal preference (handedness perhaps?) means she finds the knife and fork easier to use the "wrong way round".

Left handers often would instinctively use the knife in the left hand as it is the dominant hand for cutting (scissors, breadknives etc) so it feels very alien to have to use the right hand for cutting with a knife at the dinner table. It's akin really to being made to use a pen in the right hand even when left handed in the olden days, just because that's what was socially acceptable then.

I would assume handedness behind using the knife and fork the wrong way round, but when people hold a knife and fork incorrectly (ie like a shovel, or a pen which is worse - there's something honest about a shovel hold!) I do notice. I don't judge but I do notice.

even if you are left handed you should be able to hold the knife and fork correctly

The answer to how do you do? is how do you do?

I'm now imagining 2 people locked in a endless cycle of 'How do you do?' 'How do you do?' 'How do you do?' 'How do you do?'...

Kate Fox wrote an anthropology book about the British.

One of the things she talks about is the ‘what’. Upper and working class people say ‘what’. Saying ‘pardon’ is the hallmark of the aspirational middle classes who want to be posher than their backgrounds. There were loads of other things like that - basically people trying to ‘better’ themselves.

Traditionally if you are properly UC you don’t learn all the etiquette of bread roles etc as you would just live it from birth and wouldn’t know any different.. Interesting how these things persist and how ingrained they are in our society as being the ‘right’ thing to do.

my dd is left handed, i shall check later

Gentleman should walk on the road side of the pavement (to save the ladies from being splashed by a passing carriage).
Never put your hands in your pockets walking down the street.
Do not eat in the street.

My best friends father used to hang up on me when I called and asked "can I speak to...". I had to call back and ask "may I..."

My child says "pardon" instead of "what" because that is what his very very wonderful childminder taught him. It grates on me but to try to change him would in my mind undermine her - and to do so either be the height of poor manners.

That passing the salt thing is insane! What if you want the salt but can’t actually reach it, and the person you’re offering to pass the salt to says yes, please pass it along?

What if he/she says no thank you, I can reach it if I need it?

All my manners stuff is eating related! I think my parents were sticklers. So bad manners are

People starting to eat before everyone’s sat down at the table - unless the cook says start don’t wait because it’ll spoil while they cook everyone’s portion (e.g. pancakes, poached eggs etc)

Holding knife in your fist or from above
Eating from the fork with it concave up ( e.g. don’t hold like the spoon)
Eating from a knife/ licking knife
Elbows on table
Talking with mouth full
Picking teeth
Not pouring water for other people when you pour some for yourself as a host or guest

But on the other hand: don’t help yourself to wine/booze if you aren’t the host
Licking fingers or wiping mouth with hand- as opposed to wiping on a napkin

I didn't know 6:30. I thought cutlery down and together was a clear indication that you'd finished. I do about 5:25. I'm going to have to watch what everyone else does as we get back to being able to eat together now.

The best manners are putting others at ease. I attended a friends family event on my own and her two charming much older brothers in law who were very grand who I had never met totally put me at my ease. That’s class and manners.

I do wince at pardon know it’s my problem read too much Nancy Mitford and jolly cooper as a teen. “ mummy says pardon is a much worse word than fuck” 😁

"Please don't take your half empty bottle home. It is such bad manners. Whoever is hosting has made an effort to entertain you, and taking a bottle home is so, so rude and shows that you don't have any respect for their kindness and generosity."

That's just not how it works where I'm from. It would be considered rude to leave a host with a load of half finished bottles, that they might not want. Every time I've been to a party you get reminded to take home anything you haven't finished.

Also brought up by a snobbish mother who drummed all of this stuff into me. And I do the same with my dcs (although with less emphasis than my mother on what is "common").

I think it's interesting that we conflate "good manners" with the whole U non U thing of Nancy Mitford. I would never say "pardon" but can see that it sounds better than "what". Similarly folding a napkin (we always had cloth napkins as children). There's still a lot of snobbishness around manners.

I didn't know about eating the nose off the cheese until I was older because we didn't eat nice cheese in the 1970s. (we were too poor).

@EversoDelighted

One that I think I probably got wrong when I was young and single was taking soft drinks to a party or dinner when I was driving. I probably should have taken wine anyway as a gift to my hosts but it seemed odd to take something that you wouldn't be able to drink. I always went for "nice" soft drinks, Aqua Libre was my favourite but never sure really if it was a gaffe.

It was. The drink isn't for you to drink at the meal, it's a gift for your host.

i dont think table manners is snobbish