Etiquette quiz

[ceptimus]

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Midweek quiz: Etiquette (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7180661.stm)

Apparently, I should not be allowed to mix with polite company.

[Potato]

8/10.

I know NOTHING about table settings. Fish fork? Water glass?

[livius drusus]

Silver service, baby! I didn't know that one about the wedding toast.

[Pan Narrans]

7/10

So you know it's safe to invite me to your semi-formal parties.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

If it's any consolation, I scored 10/10. The test, therefore, is rubbish.

[Clutch Munny]

Were I to socialize with people who both knew that stuff and took it seriously, I doubt that I or they would enjoy it.

[freemonkey]

5/10

I'm an uncouth barbarian who must've been raised in a sewer and makes fun of gaseous little doggies.

[livius drusus]

You underestimate the fun potential, Clutch. A friend of a my best friend had the most amazing table manners I've ever seen. Eating with her was like watching a magic show. She could eat an orange with a fork and knife, peeling it to a perfect pith then slivering the segments.

It's all I can do not to launch into applause just at the memory of it.

[ceptimus]

I don't understand the question about whether you should talk to the person on your right or your left during the different courses of a meal.

Surely if I talk to the person on my left, then that person is talking to the person (me) on her right?

Maybe I'm just missing something, or perhaps all these etiquette gurus are too fucking stupid to have thought of my objection.

Is it good etiquette to call an etiquette expert, 'fucking stupid' ?

[Watser?]

I scored 4 and guessed most.

Well, ok, all.

And the only way I would enjoy an occasion like that is if it were my funeral.

(and what happened to the option where I kick the farting dog?)

[lisarea]

I got 7/10, but just in case anyone is considering inviting me to semi-formal events, be warned that I would do things wrong on purpose because manners are for squares.

[ITSOZAZ]

8/10

[Dingfod]

8/10, Emily Post would be proud of me.

[Zehava]

6/10

I have to strongly protest the wording of the first question. It left me wondering where the fuck you would dump the froth.

Now if they had said something like spoon the froth of and sip from the spoon, it would make more sense.

The rest of the ones I got right were mostly guesses.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

I have to strongly protest the wording of the first question. It left me wondering where the fuck you would dump the froth.

Duh, you give it to the dog. Ergo, the farting.

[Farren]

I got 3/10, but didn't answer in the spirit intended, I think. I guessed the right answer in advance most of the time, but clicked what I would do instead of what appeared to be expected.

[Crumb]

6/10 but I protest because this is obviously British etiquette which is much different than Cascadian etiquette.

[Sock Puppet]

8/10, although I admit I did the SAT strategy: narrow it down to two most likely answers, then guess. I did know the table setting crap just because it makes sense -- first cause to use the fork, use the one on the outside. Water glass is the biggest (although most semi-formal occasions have left me sorely wishing the wine glass were the biggest).

And the cappuccino answer was just stupid. If the froth isn't part of the drink, it shouldn't be there. It IS possible to drink it without making a mess of your face, although I prefer just to stir the damned thing until the froth is mixed in.

The other answer I missed was the whom-do-you-talk-to one. That one is worse than stupid.

[SharonDee]

Surely if I talk to the person on my left, then that person is talking to the person (me) on her right?No, no, no. You're not talking to the person on your left or right; you're talking to a woman. The woman's role is to sit there passively waiting for one of the men on either side to speak with her.

I mean, duh!

[Stormlight]

5/10

:pigpen:

[freemonkey]

first cause to use the fork, use the one on the outside.

I probably got this wrong because I would never think of having the fish before the salad. :kookoo:

[SharonDee]

Oh, and my score was 7/10.

Get this: I knew the whole "start at the left and work your way inward" was how the fork thing worked. But like the social idiot I am, I had me eating the soup with a fork. :dopey:

[LadyShea]

Silver service, I also missed the one about the wedding toast.

[Adam]

7/10...I think I'd be about 0/10 if I actually answered based on my actual behavior, though.

There are really situations where you'd need 4 glasses on the table at a time? I correctly guessed that the water was the biggest but what the hell are the others for? Is the smallest a shot glass?

[LadyShea]

Were I to socialize with people who both knew that stuff and took it seriously, I doubt that I or they would enjoy it.


I know it, and use it when the occasion calls for it, but don't necessarily take it seriously in my day to day life.

Having passable manners is very handy as it prevents awkward self consciousness when you find yourself at a fancy party or 5 star resort or a BBQ at a multi-million dollar home for business with people who do take it seriously (all of which has happened to me in the last decade).

I would rather know it and not use it very often, than not feel confident on those infrequent occasions.

[BDS]

I know it because I read "Miss Manners'" book (8 of 10).

Morals are manners writ large (or are they?).

[ShottleBop]

6 right. I thought etiquette demanded the creation, and comparison, of latte foam mustaches. In fact, I'm sure that, for my bar mitzvah, someone gave me a set of sterling silver scorecards for just that purpose.

[seebs]

6/10

[lisarea]

I am going to write an official etiquette guide in which it is rude to be such a giant table settings hog, and proper etiquette is to use the titanium spork that you carry in a holster on your belt.

[BrotherMan]

7/10

Apparently I should only be eating with my hands because I flubbed the settings questions. I also missed the who should toast whom first query.

And I agree with lisarea. Self carried titanium sporks should be the only utensil required. They just need to make them with a serrated edge.

[Sock Puppet]

first cause to use the fork, use the one on the outside.

I probably got this wrong because I would never think of having the fish before the salad. :kookoo:I read somewhere that having salad first is a fairly recent development, dining-wise. Apparently, In The Beginning, salad was eaten last. Which sorta makes sense from a teeth-cleaning perspective.

[Nullifidian]

I got 10/10, which I attribute to reading way too much Edith Wharton.

[LadyShea]

first cause to use the fork, use the one on the outside.

I probably got this wrong because I would never think of having the fish before the salad. :kookoo:I read somewhere that having salad first is a fairly recent development, dining-wise. Apparently, In The Beginning, salad was eaten last. Which sorta makes sense from a teeth-cleaning perspective.

The order of the courses was listed in the question, which was kinda tricky. Basically you work from the outside in and so they listed the fish as the first course to throw off the majority of us Americans who eat salad first.

[Watser?]

I got 10/10, which I attribute to reading way too much Edith Wharton.

You crazy anarchist!

:shakenull:

[godfry n. glad]

If it's any consolation, I scored 10/10. The test, therefore, is rubbish.


:laugh:

You guys are not gonna believe this...I scored silver service. 10/10.

I have never in my life been to a truly formal anything, including a wedding. I've never worn a white tie, nor a black one.

Though, as my wife attested, I'm housebroken.

I don't understand the question about whether you should talk to the person on your right or your left during the different courses of a meal.

Surely if I talk to the person on my left, then that person is talking to the person (me) on her right?

It's a matter of gender. Note that they state the man should speak to the woman on his left. They do not state that the woman should follow suit and talk to the man on her left. It doesn't direct the woman at all. Ergo, every man would talk to the woman on the left and thus every woman at the table is talking to the man on her right. This is because seating is gender alternating. The directives tend to be to the men...I wonder why? :wink:

The entrenching tools are arrayed such that their number declines through the meal. Thus, the earlier courses should use the outer silver and that would then be carried away. I didn't know where fish came in the order of service, but I knew the little inside fork would be the dessert fork, and with only three forks, any differing fork from the standard would be the "fish fork", which I had not heard of before, either.

Ignorance is no excuse for my being rude, crude, lewd and unsophisticated.

[Crumb]

The way I was raised the guest is always right, so if I start eating with the wrong fork at your house, you should too. :yup:

As a concept I think etiquette is bankrupt. It is not about politeness. It's about classism. Dividing those that have time to spend on learning silly meaningless rules and those that have to work for a living and so need real education.

[freemonkey]

The order of the courses was listed in the question, which was kinda tricky. Basically you work from the outside in and so they listed the fish as the first course to throw off the majority of us Americans who eat salad first.

You see, I know this, about working from the outside in. And I also read it in the right order and thought about it. But I really was thrown off by the fish question.

[freemonkey]

I am going to write an official etiquette guide in which it is rude to be such a giant table settings hog, and proper etiquette is to use the titanium spork that you carry in a holster on your belt.

Can we get this with :fflove: on it?

[livius drusus]

Hell fuck yeah.
:spork:

[Dingfod]

I only know most of that social politeness junk because of my 6th grade teacher Mrs. Kurti. She conducted regular ettiquette lessons as part of our overall education. At our house, there was no fish fork that wasn't also a salad fork, a meat fork, or possibly even a soup fork, for the chunkier soups. Knives were not left on the table lest we stab one another with something other than a fork.

[Farren]

Were I to socialize with people who both knew that stuff and took it seriously, I doubt that I or they would enjoy it.


I know it, and use it when the occasion calls for it, but don't necessarily take it seriously in my day to day life.

Having passable manners is very handy as it prevents awkward self consciousness when you find yourself at a fancy party or 5 star resort or a BBQ at a multi-million dollar home for business with people who do take it seriously (all of which has happened to me in the last decade).

I would rather know it and not use it very often, than not feel confident on those infrequent occasions.

I recall when Nelson Mandela was released, myself and my then gf - both big Nelson fans, I bought her Fatima Meers biography of the man on her previous birthday - with his face redacted in all the photies because he was a Banned Person - anyhoo, we went out to celebrate.

I came home one night and she had a rented tux there for me and insisted I put it on, without telling me why, then drove me blindfolded to a silver service restaurant, the kind where they take your coat, put the wine just put of reach in an ice bucket so that every time you reach for it a waiter gets to it first and pours it for you, and gently lick on your bottom in between.

It was a lovely evening. The food was marvellous, all haute cuisine - they even had intricate embroidered looking hand-drawn chocolate celtic patterns on the plate under the dessert, IIRC. Not to eat, just to admire. I was an absolute brute, and made a game of leaping up and trying to grab that wine bottle to pour my own drink before the waiter got to it. Can't recall if I succeeded.

Srsly, if it was me at some polite dinner party, Shea, I'd be eating the fish with the ordinary knife and glaring back at anyone who glared at me.

Having grown up first in Natal, which they used to call "The Last Bastion of the British Empire", then moved to rugged, aggressive, racist-as-fuck Transvaal in my teens, I can appreciate gentility. In Natal all the cool kids invited you to parties because you were a nerd. They weren't considered cool, otherwise. To be cool, you had to be nice to nerds. Every other guy in my first high school class was a surfer, but I still got invited to parties. While I was a proto-computer-nerd (I say proto because it was the dawn of the home computer, which I only got later) In Transvaal, the jocks thought it was funny to spit on you while you were eating your lunch on the playground.

But when gentility slips over into snobbery, its as annoying as all fuck. By now you might have guessed that my working definitions of the two terms are

gentility = a refinement of manners characterised by being as inoffensive and considerate as possible to all comers, whereas

snobbery = a refinement of manners where the original purpose of the manners exercised have been forgotten or were the conception of some facile sensisibility similar to those portrayed in Python's "Race for Upper Class Twits" - i.e. a set of manners which have transcended sensible sociable behaviour and become a set of ceremonies enacted by people who have lost touch with thier humanity and treasure in its place archaic ceremony, so that said manners actually become devices for seperating human from human, via signals of class.

(Aside: Did you know "manners", in 18th century England, meant roughly the same as "morals"?)

At least half of the ridiculous manners demanded by that quiz fall into the latter category and I think its the duty of right thinking and sociable human beings to not only violate them but mock the people that perpetuate them into sufficient embarrassment that they loosen up a bit.

[livius drusus]

I only know most of that social politeness junk because of my 6th grade teacher Mrs. Kurti. She conducted regular ettiquette lessons as part of our overall education. At our house, there was no fish fork that wasn't also a salad fork, a meat fork, or possibly even a soup fork, for the chunkier soups. Knives were not left on the table lest we stab one another with something other than a fork.

:lol: My dinner manners savant friend only used a spoon for soup. A spoon is like a shovel, you see, so it's not elegant like a the tined members of the flatware family. She even ate ice cream with a fork.

[Mendeh]

4/10, finger-food only. When I get married, I'm going to fuck with the table-laying and confuse everybody, then I'll have my revenge. :muahaha:

[Chris Porter]

8/10, missed the one about the dog fart, because frankly, it depends on where you are. If the friend's dog is at your place, take it out of the room. If it's at their place, move away. And I missed the bit with the bridesmaid and best man, because I forgot they exit paired. I know they stand to each side, separately.

On the whole, pretty easy. For the dinnerware stuff, best to remember to work inward from the outside. So if you are served separate courses, you use the stuff at the far end first, fish, soup, salad, etc.

And my mother taught me all this stuff, actually. We would practice this stuff, because my dad wouldn't take us anywhere unless we could behave properly. So to go to nice places, we practiced manners.

[Dragar]

2/10.

It've never been good at picking up social rules, much less archaic and rarely used ones!

[LadyShea]

Understood Farren, however when I am stuck in a situation in order to put food on the table, (ie for my work or for my husbands work) I cannot be so cavalier about it.

I know, for a fact, my manners were a huge benefit in various business transactions, and I personally felt comfortable- which is nothing to sneeze at for me. I get highly anxious when I don't know exactly how to contribute, or how to comport myself appropriately

[Farren]

Understood Farren, however when I am stuck in a situation in order to put food on the table, (ie for my work or for my husbands work) I cannot be so cavalier about it.

I know, for a fact, my manners were a huge benefit in various business transactions, and I personally felt comfortable- which is nothing to sneeze at for me. I get highly anxious when I don't know exactly how to contribute, or how to comport myself appropriately

Fair enough. Necessity is always more urgent than high (and trivial) principle. But if you have the luxury of offending overly refined people who's eyes are at the top of their nasal cavities, without suffering any loss of income, I recommend it.

How's Frank (and your adorable dog), btw?

[LadyShea]

Frank's great, our two dogs are great (not sure which you find adorable) and our son is..um..2 LOL. He's healthy and happy and smart as all get out and charming and fun, but also definitely a challenging little person

[Farren]

I only recall the one dog that you posted a photie of on the couch. Which was basically when I decided you and Frank must be the best kind of people, since only the best let their dogs use the furniture as they wish, it seems (aside from all the other cues, of course). Don't know if it was here or on HH that you posted it..

You have a son! Awesome! Somehow I didn't picture you as a mom-type.

[LadyShea]

I only recall the one dog that you posted a photie of on the couch. Which was basically when I decided you and Frank must be the best kind of people, since only the best let their dogs use the furniture as they wish, it seems (aside from all the other cues, of course). Don't know if it was here or on HH that you posted it..

Probably Duck

You have a son! Awesome! Somehow I didn't picture you as a mom-type.

We were infertile for years and had several failed IVFs. We adopted our son 2 years ago, and he was a surprise to us. My story is around here somewheres.

Sorry to go off topic folks! Haven't seen or talked to Farren in awhile

[Uthgar the Brazen]

...I'm going to fuck with the table-laying

Dinner Guest: Pass the sour cream, please.

Mendeh: Why, of course.

Mendeh's S.O.: NOOOOOOOO!

[Sorrel]

9/10. I'd be worried if I were ignored by the man sitting to one side of me for a whole dinner course!

[Mendeh]

:roflmao: Uthgar!

[godfry n. glad]

9/10. I'd be worried if I were ignored by the man sitting to one side of me for a whole dinner course!

You shouldn't notice that he's "ignoring" you, because you should be engaged in conversation with the man on the other side. Each course, you get to switch conversational partners.

I guess you're supposed to ignore those seated on the other side of the table.

[curses]

7/10. I know nothing of proper table settings apparently. Not very likely I'll be in the company of someone that this might matter to, so meh.

[vremya]

8/10 - I knew the wedding toast, but blew the cappuccino question and who to talk to at dinner first. I usually pass platters the wrong way at Thanksgiving dinner too.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

6/10. I'm embarrassed.

[Shelli]

I failed totally.

I didn't take the quiz, but I know I'd fail miserably, but I so don't care, so maybe it wouldn't be failing miserably after all.

[Ensign Steve]

Forks and knives: 7/10 for me. I am mortified. I thought I was brought up better than that. Well excuse the fuck out of me for being able to drink cappuccino without slopping it all over my face.

[JamesBannon]

Same here ES. Meh... don't really care.

[Joshua Adams]

I got 5/10... I'm embarrassed that I did that well. I should have gotten a 0 if I didn't guess everything.

[California Tanker]

50/50. I guess officers aren't taught manners at officer school, although my habit of eating steak with both a fork and knife was noted at OCS. (Apparently standard American practice is to cut a piece, the switch the fork to the cutting hand for the movement to the mouth)

I don't see the logic problem in 'speak to the woman to your left in the first course' bit. In hindsight, it makes sense: All the men speak to the woman to their left, which means that there is no reason that two men should be conflicting in attempting to hold a conversation with one woman at once, or two women trying to talk to one man at once.

I am reminded somewhat of the scene in Murder by Death (1976) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074937/) where David Niven's impeccable table manners save Peter Sellers and himself from being speared as they had been seated next to each other.
saved only by the fact that I am ENORMOUSLY well-bred!!

That was a great movie.
[Playing a game of deduction]
Sidney Wang: And you Mr. Charleston, did not approve of Mrs. Charleston dying her hair blond?
Dick Charleston: What do you mean?
Sidney Wang: Mrs. Charleston's hair red. You have blond hairs on shoulder. This means she has dyed red hair blond, then back again to red, or else you have been... So sorry, Wang is wrong.

...

Sidney Wang: Very interesting theory, Mr. Charleston. However, leave out one important point.
Dick Charleston: What's that?
Sidney Wang: Is stupid. Is stupidest theory I ever heard.



NTM

[Caligulette]

Forks and knives: 7/10 for me. I am mortified. I thought I was brought up better than that. Well excuse the fuck out of me for being able to drink cappuccino without slopping it all over my face.
Yeah, there's that. I got the same score, and know nothing or something like it about wedding crap. I wish Miss Manners would put out a quiz- now she has sensible manners. The whole cappuccino foam thing is a crock.

I've always been pretty good with table setting things, though- you just work from the outside to the inside as the meal goes along. Actually *setting* a table would be a bear- I usually just go for "Is it pretty and do we have everything we'll need?" Knife fork spoon? Ok, go!

[Nullifidian]

7/10...I think I'd be about 0/10 if I actually answered based on my actual behavior, though.

There are really situations where you'd need 4 glasses on the table at a time? I correctly guessed that the water was the biggest but what the hell are the others for? Is the smallest a shot glass?

The others are for the red wine, white wine, and sherry. The smallest would be the sherry glass, which is generally only 2 oz.

Among my previous jobs, I worked as an assistant cook in a restaurant with pretensions to being a Fine Dining Establishment, so I know a bit too much about this stuff.

You haven't lived until you can tell a 2 oz. sherry glass from a 2 oz. stemmed liqueur glass at twenty paces. :winesnob:

[Schrodinger's Cat]

thanks for the giggles!

Etiquette does not play a big part in my life.

1. cappuccino? no thanks - I'll have a plain old filter coffee.
2. wedding invitation? - talk to me,and accept my response as a reply.
3. White tie?- What is this,an American sitcom?
4.- I'll talk to anyone who talks to me. I may not be nice to them, but deal with it.
5.Fish fork?- fish is only eaten out of paper with chips.
6.Never mind the water, where's the beer?
7.Only toast should be to the sucker who paid for the grog.
8.Best man and chief bridesmaid should hook up during the reception,foreplay is optional.
9.Yours has a seat?
10.Say "Outside, you little stinker!", and see who leaves first.

Yes,I'm a barbarian. Goes with the territory.