Have Some Common Courtesy, Why Doncha?

Today is Common Courtesy Day!

Jinx (scruffy little brown one) and Jazz (fawn with big ears) and Buddy Jim (solid black)., courtesy of our pal Adrienne!

Happy Weekend!

Today is Common Courtesy Day, which feels a little passive aggressive to me. After all, it’s not a term you hear much in a non-critical context. No one ever says “Boy, that fella is a champion of common courtesy!” No, it generally refers to the absolute base-level “courtesy” that one ought to be able to expect from any other person.

That being said, I was going to present you with one of the more ridiculous quotes from my The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette, but have decided instead to give you a nice one about not being shitty to immigrants.

We should all remember that, no matter how American we are now, our ancestors, even if they were English speaking, had their own problems of adjustment here too physical, social, and economic. Even well-bred English who settle here today feel our hostility or experience our ridicule of their manners and customs as any English-born bride of an American can tell you. So it isn't language that is the principal difficulty at all. It is just the perversity of human nature. We all hate to move over, as others had to move over for us.

As silly as some of the things in that book are — I particularly enjoy the section on “Your Audience With the Pope” and the advice for parents who find their kids smoking cornsilk — I actually really do like Amy Vanderbilt’s approach to etiquette, which was largely concerned with making the people around you feel comfortable.

A lot of the “rules” of etiquette tend to feel a little outdated, but I wonder sometimes if that is why we have so much social anxiety. Like, to what degree did those rules actually make it easier for people to know what to do in social situations?

Because it does scare me that the only people who really talk about “how to be” are lunatic manosphere types telling young men to treat women like shit.

Although I don’t think schools need to be in the business of telling young ladies how to hold tea parties.

Perhaps a happy medium is in order!

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Talk amongst yourselves!