I’ve read all of her books, numerous times over.
I believe she is in her 80s, things were different when she was young.
She has written no woman should speak to an unknown man in public, any man is too forward to say hello to a woman he doesn’t know.
I always say hi in return when a passing dude says How ya doing?
I disagree with her on that.
She also discusses Eating.
Never having been invited to a formal dinner, when I eat out with a friend, I cut my chicken into lots of bite sized pieces before I start eating.
She says one must cut one bite at a time.
No one has ever noticed or been offended by my doing this.
Judith Martin used to fill the role at the Washington Post that Alexendra Petri fills now, that of the humor writer. I have a copy of her now rare collection of pieces. When she started writing her advice column, she used a persona that mocked etiquette by taking it super-seriously. Her first book was titled Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior.
Over time, she learned that people really and truly care what other people think about them. And people really and truly look down on others who don’t meet their standards.
In 1995, she said:
You can deny all you want that there is etiquette, and a lot of people do in everyday life. But if you behave in a way that offends the people you’re trying to deal with, they will stop dealing with you…There are plenty of people who say, “We don’t care about etiquette, but we can’t stand the way so-and-so behaves, and we don’t want him around!”
So she made a fortune by telling people what they wanted to hear. Good plan.
Note that she calls herself “Miss Manners” but her advice deals with “etiquette.” Manners is the art of making others feel comfortably equal while etiquette is the science of snubbing your inferiors. Take etiquette as seriously as you take your high school English teacher’s “rules” about language.
She is 85.
It’s a hoot to read her columns in the Washington Post; it’s the next thing I read after the top headlines. Actually, the comments are even funnier. Quite often commenters accuse her of just making up the (stupid) questions.
I too have a bunch of Miss Manners books that I’ve read multiple times, in addition to keeping up with her daily columns (now co-written with younger relatives of Judith Martin, I believe).
And I think you must be mistaken on this one. AFAICT, Miss Manners’ position has always been that a woman (or a man) is in no way obligated to engage in social conversation with a stranger, and a man (or a woman) is in no way entitled to expect a stranger to respond to his attempted social overtures.
But she has no problem with people choosing to have conversations with strangers if they want to.
I don’t think you are actually in disagreement with her on that, as I said above. Miss Manners isn’t telling you that you mustn’t reply to social overtures from strangers, only that you’re not obliged to.
Well, that is in fact the default convention for American table etiquette. According to those conventions, pre-cutting all one’s food before eating any of it is considered “proper” only for children and others who may have difficulty using utensils in the expected way.
Remember, Miss Manners doesn’t invent these conventions off her own bat; she’s just doing her job by explaining to questioners what the current standard system of conventions is.
Then what do you care whether it conforms to the default convention for table manners? Miss Manners has always been very clear that consenting adults in private can follow whatever rules they mutually agree upon, irrespective of etiquette conventions. I think that if you are out with a friend whose table-manners preferences are in tune with your own, you can be considered sufficiently “in private”, as far as how you choose to cut your chicken is concerned.
It’s nobody else’s goddamn business, and it would be a far more heinous violation of etiquette for anyone to butt in and scold you for cutting up all your chicken at once than for you to do that in the first place. Miss Manners would be the first to defend you against the rudeness of censorious etiquette-enforcers trying to “bust” people for etiquette infractions that are none of their business.
But if you ask Miss Manners what’s the standard table-manners convention about cutting up one’s food—and remember, all the letters she responds to are from people voluntarily asking her for etiquette information—then she’s going to tell you that the standard convention is to cut one bite at a time. Don’t shoot the messenger.
I don’t think you can make a valid case for Miss Manners’ just cluelessly channelling outdated etiquette rules because she’s old and “out of touch”. Over the decades, she has adjusted a lot of her advice to take into account changing technology and customs.
ISTM that that’s entirely out of keeping with how Miss Manners herself interprets the subject. She has always been quite critical of people who despise arbitrary etiquette rules, or naively believe that arbitrary etiquette rules are just a way of “snubbing your inferiors”.
Miss Manners has always acknowledged that the vast majority of specific etiquette conventions are arbitrary, just as most specific traffic rules are arbitrary. There’s no intrinsic reason to set a table with a napkin underneath the fork instead of underneath the knife, just as there’s no intrinsic reason to drive on the right side of the road instead of the left.
But behavioral conventions are important to human beings for lots of reasons, so it makes sense to have standard default systems of them. Just as with traffic rules, this is done so that well-intentioned people don’t come into collision through having different expectations of what other people will do.
I have no familiarity with this alleged expert on manners, but I’ll say that @Exapno_Mapcase makes an excellent point. Real manners is about making people feel comfortable; fake manners, whether you call it “etiquette” or something else, can be nothing more than artificial pretension intended to elevate oneself by snubbing one’s perceived inferiors. To me the key distinction about manners is the extent to which it accomplishes a useful and desirable purpose, whether it’s making everyone feel at home, or some other useful purpose.
On that note, just one quick comment on this bit from the OP:
This isn’t something I’d ever get hung up about, but it is actually one of those little things that usually do make sense. As recently discussed in another thread, one of the factors that helps make food more enjoyable is presentation. Presentation can be quite elaborate at a formal dinner, or much less so at an informal one, but even then, presenting someone with a dish that has been nicely laid out is part of the appetizing appeal, even if it’s just a backyard barbecue and not a French chef sprinkling exotic garnishes and drizzling swirls of fancy sauces.
But here’s the thing about cutting only what you’re about to eat. First, there’s a practical purpose in that it allows the rest of the meal to retain its heat longer. Second, there’s an aesthetic purpose as it preserves the original presentation longer. Whereas cutting things up in advance destroys that presentation and makes the dish look – and I say this with all respect to my canine compatriots – look more like a dog’s breakfast.
Still, if that’s the way someone wants to consume their meal, I certainly wouldn’t take offense, and I’d even defend them against “Miss Manners” on the basis that how someone prefers to eat their meal is their own business. But I’ve explained why IMHO there’s some valid reasoning behind the advice you read.
When I was in my early teens, I did this, and one of my parents said that Miss Manners wouldn’t approve. My response? “Screw Miss Manners”.
We laughed.
Just be aware that the defaults differ. In the U.S., you would never rest your arm on the table while eating. It would be in your lap. In Switzerland, it’s the opposite.
Just curious. After you cut up the one bite, do you put your knife down, switch hands and then eat the bite?
It’s interesting to watch someone eat a hamburger, a hot dog, or fried chicken with a knife and fork. Same for pizza. There’s a lot less mess and their hands stay clean.
After living in Switzerland for more than 2 decades, I internally cringe when I see somebody switching hands or use the side of the fork to cut something.
And that’s the main point. A big part of manners is never telling somebody that they are doing something “wrong”.
Again, trying to distinguish between those two terms seems to me pointless and unsupported by actual linguistic usage.
Yes, it’s always possible to (mis-)use a system of social conventions of some kind, whether you prefer to call it “manners” or “etiquette”, to embarrass somebody else about their social “inferiority”. But that is not what either manners or etiquette is intended to be about.
I’ll just repeat some relevant remarks I posted in a recent thread:
As the rest of your post illustrates, when people get their backs up about the existence of arbitrary social conventions like how to cut up your food, and start feeling judged and resentful about the implication that they’re doing it “wrong”, then that often leads to lengthy justifications and discussions about whether some individual arbitrary convention actually “makes sense”, and by whose standards of “valid reasoning”, along with reiterated reassurances that it’s okay if somebody wants to do it differently.
Alternatively, we can just shortcut the whole process by agreeing with Miss Manners that having systems of standard social conventions is useful, but that most of the conventions are admittedly arbitrary, and logical justifications offered on their behalf are mostly after-the-fact rationalizations. And that in any case [ETA: as Die_Capacitrix also notes], etiquette always maintains that it’s much ruder to openly criticize or correct somebody for “violating” an arbitrary etiquette convention than it is to commit the “violation” in the first place.
Yup, same like traffic rules. Whether you should drive on the left or right side of the road is very much dependent on what system of default conventions for driver behavior prevails in your current location.
Absolutely not! This very common practice is something that I’ve always found asinine and completely unnecessary. I’m right-handed, so my fork is always in my right hand which is more dexterous, and the knife always in the left because the knife has a much simpler job than the fork. There is no “right” or “wrong” about this, but IMHO there’s certainly a distinction between “practical” and “idiotically contrived”. 
Yes, but those are not foods that we normally associate with any sort of visual “presentation”. On the contrary, these hand-held foods are on the opposite spectrum of any sort of dining etiquette, and allow us to indulge in our basic caveman instincts. You should also have mentioned ribs – another great example. My only concession to “etiquette” with hamburgers is holding one for my dog while he chomped at it, rather than just throwing it into a bowl which would be unappetizing even for a dog. So I’d hold it for him, and he took bites out of it just like a human, leaving these amazingly human-like bite marks, until it was all gone. This is not “etiquette”, but it is basic good manners, because dogs have no hands capable of holding a burger! 
That strikes me as a rather uncharitable interpretation of what I meant. I was offering the OP some reasons to consider why a different style of eating would actually be advantageous to her. I also said that I not only wouldn’t be judgmental about their eating style (say, if they were at my house) but I explicitly said I would defend them against judgmental jerks like Miss Manners. I would explicitly tell Miss Manners that it was none of her goddam business how my guests ate their dinners.
My wife does this with beef, chicken, and fish and I think it’s weird. I’m not offended or anything, it’s just weird.
Not sure how you apparently got from what I said to the inference that I was uncharitably suggesting that you would be judgmental.
And I absolutely don’t see how you got to this bit from anything that’s been said in the thread. Did you not read my post #5?
A lot of people seem to get Miss Manners mixed up with Mrs. Grundy.
If you look more carefully at the post you made that I was responding to, it had:
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the phrase “doing it ‘wrong’”, with “wrong” in quotes, regarding how people cut their food, suggesting – to my reading at least – that I was being a judgmental ass about commenting on it at all,
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commentary about arbitrary conventions and “makes sense” and “valid reasoning” once again in quotes in what seemed to me an attempt to imply that I was engaged in motivated reasoning to belittle someone, and
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“… along with reiterated reassurances that it’s okay if somebody wants to do it differently”, wherein you finished it off with an apparent attempt to characterize me as patronizing.
Maybe I totally misread your post. If so, I apologize. Or maybe you totally misread mine.
In any case, what I meant to say – to make it as clear as possible – was “hey, I don’t care how you cut your chicken or whatever. It makes no difference to me. But there are a couple of practical reasons why certain conventions have become commonplace, and here is what I think those reasons are.”
That was it. No more. No less.
Define normal. 
Gourmet hotdogs and handburgers are often plated. Here’s a link (scroll down to 9. Bierliebe) to a place that serves hotdogs that you definitely want to use a fork and knife. [Full disclosure, we’ve been going to Bierliebe about once every two months since they opened. Good beer, good food and friendly waitstaff.]
Hamburgers come with a steak knife stabbed through the middle. Keeps the hamburger tidy until it reaches the customer, and it’s useful for cutting up the hamburger. There are dinner knives on the table, but the steak knife is better.
Of course, these types of hotdogs and hamburgers are not the same that one might buy in a Nathan’s or McDonalds.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody eating a hamburger at McDonalds with a fork and knife.
That said, any place that serves ribs also provides the individual lemon-scented handwipes. Even if someone wants to only use a knife and fork, to get all the meaty goodness you need to pick up the rib.
I don’t really follow Miss Manners. Too frou frou for me.
She would be astonished at my dinner table. Not about the eating. But the talking. It gets close the knuckle sometimes. I’ve never had to scream “I’m mad as hell, Shut your mouths!” Tho’ I’ve come close.
I suspect she wouldn’t appreciate me, I eat very slowly. It drives people nuts. I’m not asking them to stay seated, like I’m the Queen or something. They can leave. I don’t know why it bothers them so much. I clean up my place and load my own dishes in the DW. It’s my job to set it to come on. I feel I do my part.
I was taught this eating slow by a nutritionist, very early in my life. I insist it helps me. Altho’ I’ve been told since it does nothing.
It’s a habit now. I suppose.
And I ain’t stopping, Miss Manners!!
I’m very right-handed myself, but have the knife in my right hand to cut food because it seems safer to have the much more coordinated hand operating the cutting implement. I’m also of the “do all the cutting at once” persuasion, simply because for the way I handle a knife, that’s vastly more convenient.
As for pizza, my husband uses utensils to eat it, I don’t. I might joke with him about it, but I’m not going to genuinely criticize how he eats, as long as he manages such basics as chewing with his mouth closed.
Oh that is another thing. Half of us are Lefty’s.
Seating arrangements are hard so elbows aren’t bumping.
We think only one of the twins is lefty. Now Miss Manners what can we do?
But that’s the thing. I can’t agree with that. The types of standards being raised in this thread are not only arbitrary but also useless. They have no practical value. There is nothing gained, for example, by declaring cutting up your food all at once to be rude, while eating it bite by bite to be okay.
It’s not like, say, the rules of driving on the road. A lot of them (like what side of the road you drive on) are indeed arbitrary. But agreement on these rules is necessary for driving on public roads to be possible.
Claiming that their value is to allow people to not feel inferior is circular reasoning. The only reason anyone ever felt inferior for not following these arbitrary rules is that the people who created them decided that anyone who didn’t follow them are inferior. You can shortcircuit the whole thing by instead teaching an etiquette of embracing diversity on the things that don’t actually matter.
Where I see the “Miss Manners” concept working is if she’s actually trying to undermine the system. You note how it’s considered rude to say anything if someone breaks etiquette. You can only gossip about them later, and not invite them back because they didn’t follow your unwritten rules.
Miss Manners, by telling people the rules, circumvents this. She makes it less useful for snobbishness. And that I believe is why so much of this has broken down. More and more of the arbitrary and useless stuff has been consigned to the trashbin. Dress is less formal. Speech is less formal. Fork placement and knife usage are less formal. (I’ve had the fork set on the right many times at dinners. It works fine as long as it’s consistent.)
So, in other words, the manners don’t exist to help others not feel inferior. They exist to exclude. But then someone like Miss Manners can give knowledge to help remove that exclusion.
The problem arises when people instead use her advice (or advice from similar people) to perpetuate these arbitrary rules. That’s what people object to, and find incredibly smug.
Personally, I would find that a little odd and I’d notice but I really would not care at all or ask about it. If that’s how you want to do it then fine.
If you were at a White House gala dinner it might be different? Maybe?