Dear Etiquetteer: Recently at a Fine Dining Establishment we were told that there was no room to accommodate our party. As we were putting on our coats one of the waiters came past, who turned out to be a social acquaintance, and asked if we were having lunch there. We said we had hoped to, and explained the predicament while continuing to put on our coats. "Wait a moment." he said, and shortly we were squeezed into a cozy but otherwise charming table for a delicious lunch. Though he was not our waiter, I did thank him afterwards and slipped him a tip, since I felt he had acted in a professional capacity as much as in a social capacity. Was this proper? When is it proper to tip friends or acquaintances, and how much is appropriate when indirect service is rendered? Dear Well Led and Well Fed: Interacting with personal friends working as service personnel does sometimes feel tricky. When friends do each other favors, they respond in kind with another favor or a Token of Gratitude, not Cold Hard Cash. But Etiquetteer thinks you acted correctly in slipping a consideration to your waiter/acquaintance because of his position in the restaurant. Had he waited on your table, you would have tipped him as you would any other. Dear Etiquetteer: My wife and I were out to dinner with friends not too long ago, and I started the meal with a delicious crab bisque. As I got down near the bottom, I tilted the bowl toward me to get to the last of the soup, and my wife nudged me to stop. And, she added, I should be pushing my spoon away from me rather than pulling it towards me. Was I wrong to tilt the bowl, and is that idea of spooning away from your body real etiquette or merely an old wives tale? Dear Spooning: Etiquetteer hates to tell you, but your wife is correct. Etiquetteer’s Beloved Grandmother even had a rhyme about it: something something "Like little ships that sail to sea/I tip my spoon away from me." Etiquetteer believes that you have less of a chance of slopping a bowl of soup on you if it's facing the other direction. So when getting down to those last excellent drops of crab bisque, please tip your bowl and spoon toward the table. Etiquetteer hopes Your Lovely Wife didn't correct you verbally before people, which is certainly not Perfectly Proper. Nothing more than a raised eyebrow or gentle nudge should be required. Dear Etiquetteer: How do you address an envelope for a thank-you note if the wife is a doctor? Mr. and Mrs. John Doe seems right. Mr. and Dr. John Doe doesn’t seem right. But I'm open to suggestion. Dear Corresponding: That’s good, because ignoring a lady’s professional title is a bad idea. Put Dr. Jane Doe on the first line and Mr. John Doe on the second line. Please note that these are in alphabetical order; if they had different last names, they'd be in alphabetical order regardless of gender, e.g. Dr. Jane Adler/Mr. John Doe. Dear Etiquetteer: This came up with my wife, and then a few days later in a conversation with another couple. What is the proper etiquette for a man and a woman approaching a revolving door? I thought the man should go first. My friend proposed that, if the door is already moving, the woman should go first, otherwise, the man should go first. Dear Revolving: This is really a question of safety and chivalry. The gentleman goes first to keep the door from speeding out of control, thereby knocking to her knees some poor lady in spike heels or platform shoes. It doesn’t matter whether or not the door is already moving. Gentlemen similarly go in front of ladies when descending staircases or getting out of buses. Dear Etiquetteer: President Ford’s funeral was over a week ago. How come all the flags are still at half-staff? Dear Flagging: Because the period of official of mourning set by President Bush is 30 days from the date of death of President Ford. The Flag Code indicates that this is established by the President of the United States by proclamation at the time. You may find the President’s proclamation here. While researching this, Etiquetteer also found out that when one raises the flag when it’s supposed to be at half-staff, one must first raise the flag all the way to the top of the staff and then lower it halfway down the flagpole. For two years in elementary school Etiquetteer got stuck with . . . uh, gladly took on the duty of raising and lowering the flag at school each day and understood that half-staff only meant one flag-length from the top of the flagpole. What a relief to find out what True Perfect Propriety is now. Etiquetteer cordially invites you to join the notify list if you would like to know as soon as new columns are posted. Join by sending e-mail to notify <at> etiquetteer.com.
Weddings and Revolving Doors, Vol. 4, Issue 32
Dear Etiquetteer: Two friends of mine are getting married. Since they’ve been living together for over ten years, they really don’t need all the usual household gifts people usually give at weddings. They’ve decided to take a really adventurous honeymoon and would like to ask their friends to contribute to the travel expenses. Isn’t there a tactful way for them to do this? Dear Gifted Guest: Argh! For the last time, it’s the height of rudeness to tell people how to spend (or not spend) money on you, unless they ask and then they deserve what they get. For those who ask, the idea of a honeymoon registry (like other bridal registries for household goods) seems to appeal to many. Etiquetteer is alternately fascinated and appalled that such registries already exist, such as www.thehoneymoon.com, www.sendusoff.com, and www.thebigday.com, among others. Now Etiquetteer suspects some wedding guests will continue to balk at such a thing, preferring to present a gift of a thing rather than an experience. That is their right, and if so, the Happy Couple will just have to lump it.
Dear Etiquetteer:I work in a fairly large office building, with a very heavy revolving door at the entrance. I take pride in being a gentleman, and always hold open a regular door when I'm in the company of a member of the opposite sex, however, I don't know the rules about revolving doors. Am I being chivalrous by letting my colleague enter first, even though it forces her to push the heavy door herself to get it started, or do I enter before her so that I can do the heavy pushing instead of her? Thanks ever so much for your advice. Dear Floored in the Doorway: Thank goodness Chivalry is not yet dead! Etiquetteer is so glad that you wrote with this question, which proves that someone out there still cares about other people. You have just made Etiquetteer’s day! Etiquetteer thinks that gentlemen may gallantly precede ladies in revolving doors or exiting buses, but for different reasons. In a revolving door, gentlemen may not only do the "heavy lifting" as it were, but also regulate the speed of the door. This is more important than you may think. Etiquetteer has seen elderly ladies propelled to the floor by thoughtless collegians carelessly zipping through revolving doors. On a bus (or a flight of stairs), the gentlemen is always closest to the ground. So if you’re going up, the lady goes first and if you’re going down, the gentleman does. This got started back in the day when ladies wore huge gowns with 14-inch platform shoes (no, Etiquetteer is not kidding) and it was much easier for them to stumble. Gentlemen were there to break their fall. Happily, ladies’ fashions are less risky these days, but the function continues since the elderly or infirm sometime need extra assistance boarding the bus or getting upstairs.
Find yourself at a manners crossroads and don't know where to go? Ask Etiquetteer at query@etiquetteer.com! Etiquetteer cordially invites you to join the notify list if you would like to know as soon as new columns are posted. Join by sending e-mail to notify@etiquetteer.com.
Dear Etiquetteer:I always thought that a bride and groom went to all the wedding functions, including the day-after breakfast. Isn’t this the case? Attending a recent wedding breakfast, I saw a few disappointed faces when the bride and groom weren’t there. Dear Rubbernecker: Etiquetteer remembers an old joke (but not its source, so please let Etiquetteer know if you know) about the Victorian wedding tintype in which the groom is seated and the bride standing behind him. "Shouldn’t the lady be seated?" asked someone. "On the day after the wedding," came the reply, "she was probably too sore to sit down and he was probably too tired to stand up!" You may take from this little anecdote that Etiquetteer doesn’t think a bridal couple should be seen at all after they leave the reception, mostly because everyone knows what they were supposed to be up to the night before. You can also bet that the wedding guests still present for any day-after festivities will want to continue speculating on whether the bride was really entitled to wear white. No bride should have to be present through that . . .