Table manners

Post Reply New Topic

Does anyone else think that some table manners just don't make sense? Like the rule that when someone asks for the salt or pepper, you have to pass both at the same time. Um, if they wanted both, they would have ASKED for both. And what if someone asks for the salt, you pass both, and then you want the pepper back again? You have to ask them to pass it back - thus troubling them for no reason. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Also, I found out yesterday that it's rude to cut up your food before eating it. Just how is that rude? I don't understand it.

It doesn't make sense, of course.

But salt and pepper tend to be entities which are associated with each other. Just like something like "nooks and crannies."

If somebody doesn't want the pepper, they'll just give you back the pepper. It's a bit of a pain in the butt--but that's showbiz!

I've never heard of that one before. There seem are a lot of rules about good manners that I've never even heard of because no one has good manners anymore. Well, virtually no one.

I think whoever came up with the rules for table manners was never very hungry.

The rule where you have to say please if someone offers you something. I understand saying thank you, but why please if the other person was the one offering it to you rather than you asking for it?

I've never heard of a rule about passing the salt and pepper together. I thought you just pass whatever the person asked for, and if it's salt then just pass the salt.

I do think things like only scooping a soup spoon forward instead of back is pointless. Why does direction matter? No elbows on the table also seems like pointless strictness.

That elbows on the table rule might have been back when families were usually larger and there was less space at the table.

As long as people don't talk on their cell phones, or chew with their mouths open, say please and thank you and compliment whoever cooked the meal I'm a happy diner. Unless the food is gross and I have to pretend I like it, which I think is dishonest and LYING. Or there are a number of guests and they all talk to each other but never to me.

Speaking of which, I'm going to my parents this weekend where we're having a roast turkey meal with my nephew and my grandmother. Everyone's probably wants to hear about my parent's trip up north a couple weeks ago. Mom has already told me some fairly interesting things, like how she got stuck in the mud, and how isolated it is up there, and to think that I think it's isolated where I live now. And the groceries are really expensive! But I digress.

Obscure, arbitrary rules like those are a good way for people to spot the socially awkward ones who never got enough socialization to learn them. And, since breaking them makes us rude, they also provide a convenient reason to take offence, hate us and retaliate some way or other.

This sort of thing is so ridiculous it's amusing to people from rougher backgrounds.
You've got food - that's what you're interested in. What is happening with someone else's elbows is irrelevant.
I grew up poor. None of this even entered into anyone's radar about how you cut your food or which way you push a spoon. You had something to eat and that was all that mattered. It seems to me this sort of thing is invented by people with the luxury to be able to worry about it.
The only "table manners" thing that bothers me is an autism / misophonia thing - people who eat with their mouths open, slurp, suck, lick, chew, generally make hideous noises with mastecated food and spit.
It's got nothing to do with table manners. It has to do with sound.
I wouldn't worry about it. If someone really wants to call you out on your lack of fine dining etiquette like it's England circa 1640, then they deserve to be challenged about the rich privilege, cultural conformity / lack of understanding about diversity. Could actually end up an interesting discussion with such a person.

never heard of the salt+pepper one before. but then again, where i come from, there's usually no pepper on the table. to be honest i had forgotten that "table manners" even existed. it's all ancient silliness, and i don't think anybody i know actually cares about any of that. if they do, then i don't care that they care

i normally eat standing up or watching tv (or both), and i eat salad with my hands (no salt, oil or dressing, please). i rarely go to fancy restaurants for any reason, but when i do, i behave just the same as i would if i were at a fast-food place, and anyone who knows me won't be surprised. if it's a problem, then they'll know better than to invite me in the first place. but i don't think it has ever been a problem really

My mother is a stickler for "table manners." She thinks I'm so crude!

I've never had any complaints from anybody else--and that includes people who have gone to Finishing School.

I don't recall family dinners having any formality attached to them. Other than that "don't stab your cousin with a fork" rule they lay on me.

I especially hate the rule about not crawling onto the table and grabbing the whole roast in one's teeth like a rabid beast. Nomnomgggnommmm!

Why is everyone at the table looking at me funny..?

I understand things like not talking with your mouth full, but why should I wait for everybody else before I start eating?

I get it that it's a family thing, but what if it's Thanksgiving, and there's twenty people all assembled, waiting to eat, but we can't start because Uncle Bob is holed up in the restroom?

What if I'm really hungry, and haven't eaten since God-knows-when, and you've plopped a plate of food down in front of me and expect me not to touch it?

I'd understand if I was halfway done before anybody started eating, but why can't I take a small bite of food? Is there so much harm in a tiny piece of stroganoff?

I don't really understand.

Yep, when it's just family I don't see why everyone can't just "tuck in" -- a lot of family do just have a go ahead and eat policy if someone's tardy to the table.

I can see maybe holding back while food is still actually being served to everyone seated, because of practical reasons like letting everyone get a fair portion and the awkwardness of handing round a dish of food while someone's already occupied eating their portion. I can see waiting for that.

But if someone's held up and all the food has been dished up and ready, including the missing person's plate, I don't see why people can't just start.

Some of that is just a superstition type of thing, or an old-fashioned thing. Where I come from nobody really looks at how you eat, as long as you don't eat like a baby or an animal.