WHY bother? is always a good question – not always to be asked out loud.
Either Stan Motjuwadi or Tom Jones (as in Henry Fielding) or somebody else of hum ble birth asked (roughly): “Why did I bother to learn table manners? When I finally got to dine with the rich and important, I found that they talk with their mouths full and their elbows on the table, help themselves to the wine and grab whatever else they want”.
This is true. If you happen to have wealth and importance thrust upon you, what does it matter if you belch and blab on, tuck your table- napkin into your collar, grab the last slice of roast beef and lick the gravy from your fingers, between taking cell-phone calls from your broker, your bookmaker or your bit-on-the-side?
What does it matter if other people think you are a disgusting slob, your partner is acutely embarrassed and nobody wants to eat with you ever again? Is it so hard to be rich and important and eat all by yourself?
For the rest of us, mercifully, there are table manners.
Mercifully, again, there are thousands of web-sites where we can find them.
But Rule One is not always there and we had better not forget it: What people call manners can be very confusing.
What Isabella Mary Beeton said was required conduct for Brits at home or abroad in 1859 and Emily Post said Americans had better do if you didn't want to be un-American in 1922, may be more- or- less correct today. But it is not necessarily the same at the house next door. Different cultures have very different ideas about how we are sup posed to behave.
In some places, for example, it is considered very rude to wrench pieces of chick en from the roast in the middle of the table; in others you are required to share and to use your fingers and you are allowed to lick them. Some situations require you to swallow every scrap on your plate; in others you have to leave some to show you have had enough. If you finish what’s there, you are going to get more.
In some places you are allowed to belch to show your appreciation for a good meal rather than having to beg your pardon.
Preferably find out what you are getting into before you go, rather than having the hostess burst into tears because you said no thank you to her crumbed brains, sheep’s face or pumpkin with crispy marshmallow. Find somebody who ought to know and ask them what you can expect. And practicse eating with your mouth closed.
You don’t want to be confronted by five iridescent drinking glasses, two plates and 13 pieces of shiny cutlery and not have the faintest idea of which does what and when. Chances are you have turned up at the wrong dinner – check the invitation in your pocket or your SMS inbox, excuse yourself and slip out quietly.
Maybe you can track down the yobbo from paragraph four and have dinner with him.
Today’s Chiel is Gavin Stewart. E-mail him at
Excuse thyself, leave quietly
Either Stan Motjuwadi or Tom Jones (as in Henry Fielding) or somebody else of hum ble birth asked (roughly): “Why did I bother to learn table manners? When I finally got to dine with the rich and important, I found that they talk with their mouths full and their elbows on the table, help themselves to the wine and grab whatever else they want”.
This is true. If you happen to have wealth and importance thrust upon you, what does it matter if you belch and blab on, tuck your table- napkin into your collar, grab the last slice of roast beef and lick the gravy from your fingers, between taking cell-phone calls from your broker, your bookmaker or your bit-on-the-side?
What does it matter if other people think you are a disgusting slob, your partner is acutely embarrassed and nobody wants to eat with you ever again? Is it so hard to be rich and important and eat all by yourself?
For the rest of us, mercifully, there are table manners.
Mercifully, again, there are thousands of web-sites where we can find them.
But Rule One is not always there and we had better not forget it: What people call manners can be very confusing.
What Isabella Mary Beeton said was required conduct for Brits at home or abroad in 1859 and Emily Post said Americans had better do if you didn't want to be un-American in 1922, may be more- or- less correct today. But it is not necessarily the same at the house next door. Different cultures have very different ideas about how we are sup posed to behave.
In some places, for example, it is considered very rude to wrench pieces of chick en from the roast in the middle of the table; in others you are required to share and to use your fingers and you are allowed to lick them. Some situations require you to swallow every scrap on your plate; in others you have to leave some to show you have had enough. If you finish what’s there, you are going to get more.
In some places you are allowed to belch to show your appreciation for a good meal rather than having to beg your pardon.
Preferably find out what you are getting into before you go, rather than having the hostess burst into tears because you said no thank you to her crumbed brains, sheep’s face or pumpkin with crispy marshmallow. Find somebody who ought to know and ask them what you can expect. And practicse eating with your mouth closed.
You don’t want to be confronted by five iridescent drinking glasses, two plates and 13 pieces of shiny cutlery and not have the faintest idea of which does what and when. Chances are you have turned up at the wrong dinner – check the invitation in your pocket or your SMS inbox, excuse yourself and slip out quietly.
Maybe you can track down the yobbo from paragraph four and have dinner with him.
Today’s Chiel is Gavin Stewart. E-mail him at
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