Manners - are they changing?

BitterAndTwisted

scottishminnie wrote: »

The ones my mother insisted on and I guess are old fashioned now but I still abide with:

Tilting a soup bowl away from me to spoon up the remains.

NO! One must never tilt the plate! But one should spoon away from oneself when filling the spoon.

Difference between soup and dessert spoons

Maybe soup-spoons will soon go the way of fish-knives? It does amuse me to see people using a soup-spoon in the same way as a dessert-spoon, too. Does no-one under 30 know that you should not put the whole spoon in your mouth but take the soup from it sideways? It seems that they do not.

Does anyone remember when sprinkling salt all over your meal was infra-dig, and one should make a little miniature mound of it on the side of the plate? Perhaps not.

calicocat

Interesting .....where I came from it was 'common' to say lav and you had to say toilet.

Another major no-no was when using the side plate for bread , you were not allowed to cut and butter it, you simply take a patt of butter from the dish and pass or put it back. If I tried to butter a bun straight away as a kid I would have been stoned.
The whole soup thing my parents were really strict with, still in my head to this day how mad they went if you did it wrong ( as my brother did regularly). Actually it annoys me if people use a soup spoon in the 'wrong' way.....which is pure indoctrination........but as are most cultures.


EDIT......it would appear according to my folk who I have just asked that 'lav' ....(Talking about the 70's here growing up) was deemed bad as it meant you had an 'outside lav'....not a toilet in a house.

lostinrates

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

The word "lavatory" itself is a euphemism, so it could entertain a person to insist on that word rather than "toilet" but there we are.

The distinctions between certain words being acceptable or not are purely based on class. Therefore working-class folks said "toilet" and the middle and uppers "lavatory". The same with "serviettes" and "napkins". There are hundreds and hundreds of them and all developed as an way way of being able to easily identify those who do not belong. Nancy Mitford (I think) wrote a whole book about these demon words entitled "U or Non-U" a very long time ago. It makes for rather interesting reading.

As to manners changing: no, I don't think they are. Or rather they already have changed, and not necessary for the better. There are things which would have mortified my mother and no-one appears to care that they're no longer important. We're all working-class people but at least we knew how to behave and not bring shame on ourselves and those around us. Some of the many things was not eating, smoking or being seen combing your hair in public. Few seem to care about them now. I still do but I'm a wizened old hag now, so perhaps I'm the one out of kilter who has antiquated and outmoded attitudes. If I am, I just don't care!

I have a couple of really lovely, charming and adorably kind friends who shamingly don't notice that they both lick their knives at table and no-one else has ever done it. When eating bread in a restaurant one of them cuts it and then holds it in the palm of her hand and butters it like that. I honestly wonder sometimes why they imagine there's a side-plate on the table.....

The way it was explained to me was exactly that, euphemisms were to be avoided, but also that they were "middle class niceties" not working class ones. Ofcourse class comes into it, because a spade is a spade, but while a worker and a lord might feel no shame about using one a middle class person (so the stereotype goes) might feel some shame in being 'caught' doing manual work.

One thing that really confused is that a lot that is considered 'correct' in 'upperclass' US of A would be considered those same best avoided niceties here.

These sort of things really do not matter IMO! So I find it rather amusing and embarrassing both that I would want a child, had I had one, to use them comfortably. I don't notice thaty have enhanced my life or that the world has shifted on its access when I have strayed from them. As I say, I never think less of friends who use words I do not, but I would think less of someone who judged someone on those things.

A thoughtful outlook and a kind heart are more important to me in people i choose to spend than awareness of words in places, and even something's like street eating.

Incidentally, I love 'real' street food, and have it. Little beats fish and chips while sitting watching the sea when you do not live near it or hot chestnuts which always seem sweeter from venders than at home.

lostinrates

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Maybe soup-spoons will soon go the way of fish-knives? It does amuse me to see people using a soup-spoon in the same way as a dessert-spoon, too. Does no-one under 30 know that you should not put the whole spoon in your mouth but take the soup from it sideways? It seems that they do not.

Does anyone remember when sprinkling salt all over your meal was infra-dig, and one should make a little miniature mound of it on the side of the plate? Perhaps not.

Modern sets most buy certainly do not have soup spoons do they? We had to buy ours separately for the kitchen stuff) .

We do not use fish knives. Someone in the family had a set bought when they were newly popular.:D. But none of that came our way.

My canteen doesn't have them, and I don't feel the need to buy any. Mine also lacks spoons, but to my shame I cannot remember which ones ATM . . Chances are one day I will feel the need to buy proper spoons. Now we use what's missing from a mismatched selection.:D

lostinrates

calicocat wrote: »

Interesting .....where I came from it was 'common' to say lav and you had to say toilet.

Another major no-no was when using the side plate for bread , you were not allowed to cut and butter it, you simply take a patt of butter from the dish and pass or put it back. If I tried to butter a bun straight away as a kid I would have been stoned.
The whole soup thing my parents were really strict with, still in my head to this day how mad they went if you did it wrong ( as my brother did regularly). Actually it annoys me if people use a soup spoon in the 'wrong' way.....which is pure indoctrination........but as are most cultures.


EDIT......it would appear according to my folk who I have just asked that 'lav' ....(Talking about the 70's here growing up) was deemed bad as it meant you had an 'outside lav'....not a toilet in a house.

Up until twelve weeks ago we did have an outdoor loo!

adelight

I don't even consider some people's pet peeves to be manners but then I really am not up on manners. As long as someone's not doing something really vile like chewing with mouth open, spitting, pushing through doors etc then I don't notice and I would never point it out unless it was a close friend or relative. I appreciate the basics and common courtesy but unless it's a really formal environment I could not care less if someone uses the wrong spoon or has condiments on the table.

I eat with my knife and fork in the wrong hand. Always have, always will. The rest of my family eat normally and I try to every now and then but I've never been able to get the hang of it. I can't tie laces properly either so I'm guessing I just have useless fingers not useless parents as some might assume
Being in my 20s probably has something to do with it but none of my family have impeccable manners, dining rooms or napkin rings. They're all salt of the earth working class types and perfectly good, kind people just not classy.

Icey77

I eat with my knife and fork the wrong way around I've always done this but I'd like to hope my table manners are acceptable other than is.

Because of this "cack handedness" I can't use a fish knife unless one of these days I find a left handed one

The one thing I always notice is people who hold their knife like a pencil, I can't help it it just catches my eye.

dibuzz

adelight wrote: »

I eat with my knife and fork in the wrong hand. Always have, always will. The rest of my family eat normally and I try to every now and then but I've never been able to get the hang of it. I can't tie laces properly either so I'm guessing I just have useless fingers not useless parents as some might assume

I can only use a knife and fork in the "wrong" hand too.
My mum used to shout at me, telling me it was rude which puzzled me but eventually gave up.

BitterAndTwisted

lostinrates wrote: »

Modern sets most buy certainly do not have soup spoons do they? We had to buy ours separately for the kitchen stuff) .

We do not use fish knives. Someone in the family had a set bought when they were newly popular.:D. But none of that came our way.

My canteen doesn't have them, and I don't feel the need to buy any. Mine also lacks spoons, but to my shame I cannot remember which ones ATM . . Chances are one day I will feel the need to buy proper spoons. Now we use what's missing from a mismatched selection.:D

I wasn't aware that sets of cutlery didn't include soup-spoon as I've never bought one. Not having proper soup-spoons is probably seen as an irrelevance these days, and maybe they are

I threw in the reference to fish-knives as a bit of a joke as I understand that they only became popular relatively recently, so that the "old money" types sneer at them as their own good silver would have been inherited and therefore not included them. Rather like the insult thrown at a certain politician behind his back whose family "had to buy their own furniture".

lostinrates

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

I wasn't aware that sets of cutlery didn't include soup-spoon as I've never bought one. Not having proper soup-spoons is probably seen as an irrelevance these days, and maybe they are

I threw in the reference to fish-knives as a bit of a joke as I understand that they only became popular relatively recently, so that the "old money" types sneer at them as their own good silver would have been inherited and therefore not included them. Rather like the insult thrown at a certain politician behind his back whose family "had to buy their own furniture".

I don't know about 'good sets' I am sure they have soup spoons. I was talking about cheap sets from supermarkets etc, where the standard is four each of a knife, a fork, a dessert spoon and a teaspoon. Thats the sort of thing we have been using in the kitchen for a few years, and that I have had since a student, and yep, eating soup from a desert spoon is not condusive to normal eating, because the bowl of the spoon is too small.

I sneer at no one, but do not feel the need to buy fish knives, but do want soup spoons!

Oh, and I would rather buy all my own furniture! I have odd taste not shown by either of our families. I like some of what we 'inherited' but more I would like the money to afford to buy similar quality of our own taste, and I doubt that wioll ever happen.