When someone at work asks you how your weekend was and then walks away before you answer, should you feel slighted?
According to Miss Manners, the answer is no. In the newly revised and updated “Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior,” the celebrated bastion of proper behavior tells it this way:
“A colleague’s ‘How was your weekend?’ is a mere pleasantry, not an invitation to explain that you did the crossword puzzle in ink, washed the dog, Googled an old flame, rented some movies and ate too much.”
Apparently a lot of people have questions like this, because for more than 25 years, they’ve been writing in to syndicated columnist Judith Martin, better known as Miss Manners, for help with everything from composing wedding invitations to how to eat a potato chip.
Those unfamiliar with such niceties are in luck, because Martin’s hefty volume is practically guaranteed to save you from social embarrassment.
Throughout the book, Miss Manners tinges her answers to readers’ questions with her trademark wicked wit, while supplying a wealth of useful information. Good thing too because now that it’s 2005, etiquette entails a lot more than which fork to use for your salad.
“I hadn’t planned on revising it, but in fact there are things that have come up, new ways of being rude and I found the necessity for it,” Martin said during a polite telephone interview from her home in Washington, D.C.
“You apply the principles of manners of good behavior to changing conditions. In some instances you’d think people could make the leap: ‘If it’s not polite to talk during a movie out loud, then it’s rude to talk on the phone during the symphony.’ They don’t necessarily make the leap.”
So even after nine etiquette instruction books, Miss Manners has plenty more to say about incorporating civility into our everyday lives. Like her earlier books, this one is composed of letters from readers followed by her straight-
to-the-point answers, as well as an introduction to each chapter.
Beyond cellphone abuse, she addresses other technology-related issues, such as how to tell your friends to stop e-mailing you with pesky bulk nonsense and how to tactfully say no when someone wants your e-mail address.
Then there’s instant messaging and laptops, both rife with potential faux pas, with people having the gall to suddenly and without warning send instant messages, and secretly using their laptop under the table during meetings.
New trends in social situations require enlightenment as well, according to Martin. A huge area, she says, is “blatant greed and its infinitely created manifestations” in social situations. In other words: “using personal occasions as fundraising occasions.”
These range from the dreaded “cash preferred” mention on wedding invitations to requesting specific gifts for children’s birthday parties.
“It has corrupted present exchanges and it has corrupted hospitality,” Martin said. “People no longer see social lives as eventful and graciously reciprocal. They see it as a bottom line each time: ‘Why should I pay for your meal at my house, why don’t you pay for the food, why don’t you compensate me?”‘
Other topics covered in the book include handshakes, houseguests, casual dress at work, dining, dealing with the ill, interviewing for a job, complaining about bad service, divorce, vacations, tip jars and Christmas letters.
And if you’re wondering just how to eat a potato chip, Miss Manners has news for you on Page 194: “Anyone who doesn’t have the sense to pick up a potato chip and stuff it into his mouth probably should not be running around loose on the streets.”
Mia Geiger is a freelance writer in the Philadelphia area.
Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Freshly Updated
By Judith Martin
W.W. Norton, 864 pages, $35
