The Etiquette Thread

[Nysha]

This may be a dumb question, but is there any logical reason why men are expected to remove their ball caps in restaurants?

[eclair]

I think it's old ettiquette from a time when men wore hats and removed them indoors. Men and women would remove their gloves to shake hands, or it was considered rude.

I wish people would take off their sunglasses for greetings and introductions. I want to see their eyes.

[ladyboy]

I hate it when people leave their baseball hats on in a nice restaurant. So...common. /sniff

[chonies]

Etiquette isn’t especially logical, either. For example, Brigitte Macron’s table card at the state dinner was written as Mrs Brigitte Macron, which is incorrect as she is not a widow, but it is in fact her name.

Other than that, as far as ball caps, I think there’s an implicit level of sophistication that some people might want to aspire to. Ball caps are casual and may be out of place in some venues, if the wearer cares about such things.

[Deleted]

Apr 26, 2018 6:44:57 GMT -4 chonies said:

Etiquette isn’t especially logical, either. For example, Brigitte Macron’s table card at the state dinner was written as Mrs Brigitte Macron, which is incorrect as she is not a widow, but it is in fact her name.

I know zip about etiquette, so could someone explain why exactly having a married woman's full-name on a dinner card is supposed to indicate that she's a widow?

[Deleted]

Should it have been Mrs Emmanuel Macron(in days gone by), I was wondering too and that's all I could come up with. I prefer the use of a women's own name nowadays.

[chonies]

Apr 26, 2018 7:22:09 GMT -4 @roisin54 said:

Apr 26, 2018 6:44:57 GMT -4 chonies said:

Etiquette isn’t especially logical, either. For example, Brigitte Macron’s table card at the state dinner was written as Mrs Brigitte Macron, which is incorrect as she is not a widow, but it is in fact her name.

I know zip about etiquette, so could someone explain why exactly having a married woman's full-name on a dinner card is supposed to indicate that she's a widow?

Welllll, technically I don't know which style guide the White House uses, but in extremely formal/traditional circles, it's part of the social code, so Mrs Emmanuel Macron for married couple, and Mrs. Brigitte Macron if she were a widow. [Insert rant about patriarchy] I would assume it means something about who is the head of the household--if Emmanuel were dead, then Brigitte would be the head of the household, a position she certainly couldn't have while she was alive, amirite? And what fitz said.

I'm sure there is an explanation somewhere, but I am lumping this in with my previous assertion that this stripe of etiquette is not logical and is actually sexist and classist. So while it hurts me to give the WH props on this, I do commend the social director for moving closer into the present day.

I like this article about Mrs/Miss, in part because it sets up a timeline. I also checked a few other sites, and I disagreed with some of them--I personally don't think a PhD (or EdD) should use 'Dr.' as a social title outside the workplace, for example. I looked at the Wikipedia page for Mrs and a lot of the info is from the 1922 version of Emily Post. I put it in my editing queue for when I have time.

[tabby]

Under the rules of etiquette used when I was a child, a widow continued to use the form she used before her husband died - Mrs. John Smith. (The old rule for a divorced woman was that she used her maiden name and married name together - Mrs. Jones Smith.) At no time did a woman use the form "Mrs. HerFirstName Lastname."

As we got into the 60s and 70s, that started to change, and divorced women began to use their first names with their married last names - Mrs. Mary Smith. Then more and more women started to do that - women in the workplace especially would need a professional identity. Other women followed suit, because they disliked being considered merely appendages to their husbands.

The rise of the use of Ms. also helped women reclaim their first names. You could be Ms. Mary Smith professionally and Mrs. John Smith socially, or bag the traditional method and use Ms. Mary Smith all the time. Your marital status is not the business of your casual or professional acquaintance.

Etiquette rules change, and we've had a boatload of changes in recent decades. My widowed grandmother preferred "Mrs. Theodore Lastname," but my widowed mother has used "Mrs. Sarah Lastname" for years. Calling people what they prefer to be called is good etiquette, to my mind.

I remember from Miss Manners that "Ms." has a long history as one of the abbreviations for "Mistress," used for women for centuries.

[divasahm]

Back to baseball caps...

I grew up in Texas, where the rules are really fuzzy about baseball caps indoors, depending on where you are. I've learned to let it slide after an encounter I had in college--our choir from UT-Austin had been invited to perform with the Brazos Valley Symphony, largely because the closest university to them, Texas A&M-College Station, had no music department. We went for a two-day rehearsal, and spent much of the day exploring the campus. All was well until we hit the student union, where a group of Aggie cadets immediately began to berate one of our group for wearing his cap indoors. "UNCOVER YOUR HEAD INDOORS, SIR!!" one of them yelled. They made quite a scene.

Then my friend lifted his chin, took off his cap, and revealed the still-fresh scars from the brain surgery to remove two malignant tumors, and his freshly bald scalp from the chemo he had recently begun. The fact that he was vertical and functional was miracle enough, and the fact that he felt well enough to sing with us was nothing short of incredible.

Those cadets were thoroughly embarrassed and shut up in a hurry. I've never given two shits about hats indoors since.

[Deleted]

Apr 26, 2018 9:05:45 GMT -4 chonies said:

Apr 26, 2018 7:22:09 GMT -4 @roisin54 said:

I know zip about etiquette, so could someone explain why exactly having a married woman's full-name on a dinner card is supposed to indicate that she's a widow?

Welllll, technically I don't know which style guide the White House uses, but in extremely formal/traditional circles, it's part of the social code, so Mrs Emmanuel Macron for married couple, and Mrs. Brigitte Macron if she were a widow. [Insert rant about patriarchy] I would assume it means something about who is the head of the household--if Emmanuel were dead, then Brigitte would be the head of the household, a position she certainly couldn't have while she was alive, amirite? And what fitz said.

I'm sure there is an explanation somewhere, but I am lumping this in with my previous assertion that this stripe of etiquette is not logical and is actually sexist and classist. So while it hurts me to give the WH props on this, I do commend the social director for moving closer into the present day.

That's what I thought might've been the explanation. Only on rare occasions at work I'll encounter an older woman who still uses the Mrs. John Smith form, but I could probably count the number of times that's happened on one hand. My mother and her sister and sisters-in-law all went with Mrs. Mary Smith.