My Virtual Reading Room

www.cnbc.com/2024/01/05/the-best-way-to-deal-with-6-awkward-life-situations.html

Saved from last year--too crazy not to share :P (aka, if you thought your family gatherings are problematic...I'd heard a couple of good Thanksgiving stories, but this one takes the cake.)
~~

Dear Miss Manners • My Thanksgiving was ruined by people that my brother allowed in his house.

I told his girlfriend not to bring or cook a turkey, as I had one already there.

I was cooking said bird when she and two others arrived, already stewed to the gills. They took out my bird and threw it over the backyard fence.

I knew their bird was rancid, as I have been trained as a chef. I told my bro not to eat it. He ate it and was very sick for four days.

I ate one bite and wrapped what was left in my napkin. I proceeded to the nearest hospital, where I work, and had it tested. Salmonella, big time. Do you think it was rude of me to do so?
I warned her about her bird. She nearly killed my bro. What can I do?

Gentle Reader •

(1) Check on the neighbors. Even on Thanksgiving, they cannot have expected delivery of an airborne fowl.

(2) Make other plans for Christmas.

Dear Miss Manners • I think it is so ugly to hold up your pinky while drinking tea. Do you consider it good or bad manners?

Gentle Reader • It has been both in its day, as Miss Manners recalls.

When tea was first imported to England from China, it was wildly expensive and kept locked up. It was drunk from Chinese cups, which are very thin and, for reasons best known to the designers, have no handles. Therefore, tea drinkers held the cups with as few fingers as possible to minimize scorching, especially of the pinky, which is apt to have fewer callouses than the others and thus be more sensitive.

Because it was a luxury of the rich, that gesture came to be associated with them, and not in a nice way.

As we now have our own teacups with handles, the once-practical gesture is absurd, and only the association with wealth and, by implication, snobbery, persist.
~~

Dear Abby • While driving with my son when he was in fifth or sixth grade, I spotted a bumper sticker on the car ahead of us at a stoplight. It had the “My child is an honor student” message with his school’s name on it. I said to him, in a not-too-subtle hint about his grades, “I’d like to have a bumper sticker like that to put on my car, too.”

I realized he was developing a wicked sense of humor when he replied, “I’ll see if I can steal you one.” It’s one of my favorite memories. — Oh, the Memories in LaGrange, N.C.

Dear Memories • Funny! And what has he become? A lawyer, a politician or a comedian?

~ New Orleans Daily Democrat, February 14, 1877

The entire article, which includes the link to the full text of the book, can be seen here:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/04/17/the-art-of-conversation-martine-etiquette-1866/

I would like to quote some of the passages from the book itself that particularly caught my eye; some, because they still apply today, just as much as they did at the time the book was published:

Regarding those who tell long, boring stories:
~~

Stories, however good—and they are often to be recommended—suffer under one of the disadvantages to which anecdotes are liable,—they do not bear repetition; and no one can be expected to possess a stock that shall furnish new and acceptable wares on every occasion. They form in conversation the resource of those who want imagination, and must be received with indulgence; but to deserve this favor, they must be short, well told, well pointed, and judiciously adapted to the feelings and composition of the party. We have all of us at times known a good story or anecdote introduced under such inappropriate circumstances, as to make a whole party look grave and feel uncomfortable.

The honor of demolishing the weavers of long tales shall be left to Cowper.

"But sedentary weavers of long tales
Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails.
'Tis the most asinine employ on earth,
To hear them tell of parentage and birth;
And echo conversations dull and dry,
Embellished with he said and so said I.
At every interview their route the same,
The repetition makes attention lame;
We bristle up with unsuccessful speed,
And in the saddest part, cry—Droll, indeed."
~~
...Rousseau tells us, that "persons who know little talk a great deal, while those who know a great deal say very little."
( Further assorted advice: )

And some very dated, and thus amusing advice:
( What not to say, and how to interact with "the ladies": )

(from "Questionable Advice" tumblr)

"Etiquette tells one which fork to use. Manners tells one what to do when your neighbour doesn't"

Этикет учит нас, какой вилкой нужно пользоваться. А манеры учат нас тому, что надо делать, если ваш сосед пользуется не той вилкой.