Do Manners Matter?

All Aboard the Meme Express – Monday, July 21, 2008

Poster art from Hennessy Leroyle’s
Other People’s Money
Illustrated by E. O. Towne
(c1900, public domain)

Amy Vanderbilt (1908 - 1974), the maven of manners and author of Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette, was born on July 22, 1908, in New York City. Vanderbilt has been noted for several pithy phrasings on politeness, including the following:

“Good manners have much to do with the emotions.
To make them ring true, one must feel them,
not merely exhibit them.”

“Do not speak of repulsive matters at table.”

"Everyone knows that a man can always marry
even if he reaches 102, is penniless,
and has all his faculties gone.
There is always some woman
willing to take a chance on him."

“Parents must get across the idea that
‘I love you always,
but sometimes I do not love your behavior.’”

“One face to the world,
another at home
makes for misery.”

Our Meme Express prompt today is all about etiquette, manners, protoco, societal standards, cultural mores and proper behavior:

Do manners matter?

Is etiquette essential?

Why or why not?

Have you ever experienced embarrassment over etiquette?

What’s the worst faux-pas you have ever found?

Post your poem, story, song, photo or other entry on your blog. Then come back here, and post a comment with a link to your own entry. (Need help making an active link? See Super-Simple Linking. Feel free to bookmark it for future reference!)

Use the images, quotations and questions . . . or not. These are just thought-provokers . . . to get you started.