Episode 503 - Looking Tired
Your Awesome Etiquette podcast episode for the week. Plus the Monday joke, and an Etiquette Extra on the Italian origins of Etiquette.
On today’s show, we take your questions on a money transfer travesty, whether it’s ever okay to say, “You look tired,” and pre-written letters of recommendation. For Community Members, your question of the week is about what to do when someone asks if you invited them by mistake–and you didn’t! Plus, your etiquette salute and a postscript on a standing wedding breakfast or reception from Emily’s 1922 edition of Etiquette.
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Etiquette Extra - Italian Etiquette Etymology
Don’t tell them, but the French didn’t, in fact, invent etiquette. So begins this little reflection in The Spectator about the origins of the term etiquette. While the truth is usually more complicated than either story conveys, details about the origins of our social conventions and the contributions of Giovanni della Casa, author of Il Galateo, written in 1558, help to fill in the story and paint a rich picture of the origins of etiquette.
The French étiquette means ‘a label’ or ‘a placard’. It supposedly developed as a reference to the signs one of Louis XIV’s gardeners put up around Versailles to ward people off the lawns. But according to one of the experts interviewed for the documentary that’s a myth; the term is more likely to have developed in the context of courteous behaviour at the Spanish court back in the 16th century. While Henri III of France borrowed the word back – his mother Catherine de’Medici introduced many new rules that had been learned across Europe – etiquette was by then most popularly associated with the Italians.
We love the reminder provided by the new etiquette challenge offered at the end of the podcast each week. We always say that etiquette isn’t just something you know; it is something you practice. What better way to advance the cause of civility than to practice a little good etiquette each week?! How did you do on inviting someone to dinner last week? This week’s challenge is to hold a door for someone by stepping fully aside and letting them pass through first.
Join us on Thursday for the Etiquette Today article. Until then!
All the best,
Lizzie and Dan
Happy-Monday Joke
"I'm reading a book about anti-gravity."
"It's impossible to put down."
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