The Past Asks You: 1889 Etiquette

The following questions are taken (verbatim) from The Home Manual: Everybody’s Guide in Social, Domestic, and Business Life (1887). Each question below is followed by the original response along with three modern impostors. Test your etiquette cred by identifying the correct answers!

1. Is it proper to use a knife and fork in eating asparagus, or should the stalks be taken in the fingers?

a) Certainly, knife and fork are obligatory.
b) Never use a knife. Many well-bred people take the stalks in the fingers. If a compromise is desired, use the fork only. 

c) Asparagus has no place on a refined table.

d) Use the knife only. It is prudent to practice the use of the asparagus knife in isolation until elegant mastery is attained.

2. Is it good form for a lady to ask her fiancé to take her to drive?
a) It is acceptable, provided that a chaperone is available to accompany them.

b) No, it would be more proper for her to suggest “Serialized novel and chill?”

c) It is not improper, but ladies usually wait for their lovers to take the initiative, especially in the early days of the engagement. 

d) It is acceptable if the engagement has persisted for more than six months.

3. On what occasions is it proper for a man to wear a “tourist shirt?”

a) When traveling abroad in warmer climes.

b) When the need for armpit ventilation eclipses the desire for self-respect.

c) When yachting, playing ball or tennis, or in the woods.

d) This custom is never acceptable among those of good breeding.

4. Is it proper to wear a black silk hat in summer, if a man dislikes the light colored ones?
a) No, it is contrary to custom.

b) Tasteful shades of pale blue and violet may be permitted.

c) Only if he is a Dickensian villain named Mr. Gloombridge or Sir Tetchbottom.

d) This custom is gaining acceptance among younger men but should not be adopted by a man above forty.

5. If a gentleman meets a lady in a large retail store and wishes to talk with her, is it allowable for him to replace his hat after removing it to bow?

a) No, courtesy dictates that he hold the hat until the parties take their leave.

b) No, but he may place it in the front compartment of his ample Costco shopping cart in order to assist the lady with her party size hamper of frozen meatballs.
c) Yes, for in a large store, where a number of people are passing to and fro, the same rules apply as when persons meet in the street.

d) He may replace his hat only if the lady authorizes him to do so.  

1. b 2. c 3. c 4. a 5. c

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How to Converse Politely, 1595

John Bulwer, Anthropometamorphosis
(1653), George Peabody Library

"It is also a fowle and unseemely thing for thee to make faces, in wrything thy visage into divers formes: or, to rub one while thy nose, another while thy forhead: or, one while to lift up thine eye browes, another while to pull them down too much, or to patter with thy lips; or, one while to thrust out thy mouth too much, another while to pul it in over-much, or to shake thy head, or to cough, unles thou be there too inforced: or to spet oft, or to scratch thy head, to picke thine eares, or to blow thy nose, or to smoothe thy face with thine hand, as if thou wouldest wype away shamefastnes from thee: to bee picking or rubbing thy neck, as if thou wert lowsie: or to clyng in thy shoulders, as some Italians use. All these are evill." 

William Fiston, The Schoole of Good Manners

 OMG stop picking thine ears and seriously what is with all the spetting?!

How to Walk With Ladies, 1891

"Always keep to the right of the sidewalk, and never pass in front of a lady coming at right angles at a street corner, unless a distance of six feet intervene between said lady and the crossing-point when you reach it... When walking with a lady keep either a military step, or if her step is too short for your comfort, then take a Newport drag pace, taking care that the body does not rise much, thus preventing a see-saw appearance... A distance of half a foot should be kept between the lady and yourself at all times when the walk is not crowded; this is necessary always in the daytime, and also in the evening unless the acquaintance is such as permits taking arms. Never lock arms in the daytime." 

Mortimer Delano de Lannoy, Simplex Munditiis. Gentlemen (1891) 

Walking: perhaps you think you have mastered this art. You are wrong. Until you can perform instinctive calculus operations on street corners and execute a smooth Newport drag pace, you should not walk in public.

How to Eat Politely, 1651

"If thou soakest thy bread or meat in the sauce, soak it not againe, after that thou hast bitten it, dip therein at each time a reasonable morsell which may be eaten at one mouthfull." 

Francis Hawkins, Youths Behaviour 

From the same authority who told you not to be a close-talker, more timeless advice: don't be a double-dipper.

How to Converse, 1651

"Neither shake thy head, feet, or legges; Rowle not thine eyes. Lift not one of thine eye-browes higher than thine other. Wry not thy mouth. Take heed that with thy spettle thou bedew not his face with whom thou speakest, and to that end approach not too nigh him." 

Francis Hawkins, Youths Behaviour (1651)

The close-talker: terrorizing conversation partners since the seventeenth century.