# Does Anyone Still Have a Butler? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 21, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857 "2011-07-21T15:07:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/41 "2011-07-24T23:29:47Z")
Don’t know about anybody else, but ever since the do gooder crackdown on castration occurred I can’t find a butler I trust. Chinese eunuchs may be roly poly by the time they’re 30 but they hardly ever steal. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/42 "2011-07-25T04:00:04Z")
“Major-domo” actually is incorrect. The position is originally termed “domo-arigato.” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/43 "2011-07-25T14:21:20Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > We taxpayers still pay for one at the White House. > > Just a couple of years ago, the butler for 8 Presidents died. (A black man, he served starting with Truman, and retired under Reagan. But he lived long enough to see a black man as President.) Yes - quite a story: [Eugene Allen dies at 90; White House butler from Truman through Reagan](http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-eugene-allen4-2010apr04,0,6489324.story) Here’s the Wiki article on buttling. Apparently butlers are a hot commodity in China, India and the Middle East right now: [Butler - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler) ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/44 "2011-07-25T14:43:47Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Seriously, have you seen the riff raff which knock on ones front door! Trying to rub shoulders with ones betters! Its almost as if they actually believe this “equality” thiing. > > “woosh” “woosh” acknowledged :smack: ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/45 "2011-07-25T14:47:41Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > And Jeeves was his surname: Reginald Jeeves. So if parents wanted their kid to have a “butler” name, they’d have to name him “Reginald.” Nah, they’d change their last name to “Jeeves.” It could be a movement, once it gets out why there aren’t any Butlers anymore. As a matter of fact, we could all have our own butlers, and be butlers, too, if we all change our surnames to Jeeves and work shifts for each other. Except for the buttresses, of course. They’d have to take shifts buttressing, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/46 "2011-07-25T14:50:00Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > I know just what you mean **AK84**! > > Personally I still go peasant shooting . > > And after they’ve been hung for a couple of days they make a very nice supper washed down with a single malt scotch. The days of inequality are over, now that we’ve stumbled upon the solution of all changing our surnames to Jeeves. On the downside, it would make using the phone book really hard. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/47 "2011-07-25T14:51:49Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Don’t know about anybody else, but ever since the do gooder crackdown on castration occurred I can’t find a butler I trust. Chinese eunuchs may be roly poly by the time they’re 30 but they hardly ever steal. Seriously though, I can see eunuchs being favorable to solve any adultery problems in a household, by how on earth does castration prevent theft? They just don’t have the balls to do it? he he :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/48 "2011-07-26T00:58:03Z")
> [@David42](#): > > Seriously though, I can see eunuchs being favorable to solve any adultery problems in a household, by how on earth does castration prevent theft? They just don’t have the balls to do it? he he > :dubious: I think the logic was "they don’t have families to support and [so long as they were snipped early or snipped completely] they won’t be chasing women to spend it on, so they shouldn’t be needing money enough to steal. That said, it didn’t work out in theory: many incidents in the courts of Persia and China and Byzantium of eunuchs robbing their masters blind. (There’s a scene in _The Last Emperor_ in which the title characters orders an inventory of the palace and its warehouses to deduce the extent of eunuchs stealing, and some of the eunuchs set the place on fire to prevent it; when they are banished from the Forbidden City they leave carrying jars that contain the remains of their severed parts [the Chinese imperial houses went full monty with eunuchs, unlike some cultures where they just took the testicles]). > [@clairobscur](#): > > I’ve seen some years ago a documentary about an upscale butler school. They also followed an actual butler in his daily duties. So, apparently, old-style butlers still exist. I saw a segment on some magazine show about one as well. This one was in England and in an old mansion where instructors played the family and they trained upscale domestics of all sort, but butlers were the rock stars. They actually went through all manner of real-life situations to use as teaching experiences. One that I remember: the butler comes into the master bedroom in the morning while the master is away to serve madame her coffee and breakfast and she is in bed with a man who is not her husband. How should he react? The answer to that particular one: pretend the man next to her in bed is invisible. Do not offer to bring him breakfast or for that matter do not address him directly unless the lady of the house instructs you to do so. (Discretion is evidently a major lesson in butlering school.) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/49 "2011-07-26T01:37:48Z")
Confidentiality is a major concern today I would think. Ike Hoover was a butler at the White House for many years and wrote a memoir of his experiences. Other members of the White House domestic staff have written books as well- [Backstairs at the White House](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078565/)by Lillian Rogers Parks (she and her mother worked at the White House from Taft through early JFK) became a miniseries (pretty good one). The Parks book was good. You found out which First Ladies the staff considered bitches (Mrs. Taft, Mrs. Hoover, Mrs. Eisenhower) and which they really liked (both Mrs. Wilsons, Mrs. Coolidge, Eleanor Roosevelt) and which presidents they liked personally (Harry Truman, Taft), etc… There’s some insight on tragedies that occurred and how it affected the president (Nellie Taft’s stroke torpedoed any political ambition her husband had, the Coolidges fell into deep depressions over their teenaged son’s death). The worst depiction is of the Hardings- he’s portrayed as a horndogging bastard who flaunted his infidelities and she’s portrayed as the craziest First Lady since Mary Lincoln (complete with spiritualist consultations). In any case, even though neither book was a tell all (in fact you figure they probably could have told a lot more), today they wouldn’t be possible. Domestic staffs from Head Butler down to part-time cleaning staff sign confidentiality agreements and have to get all kinds of clearance and dispensations before they can write anything about the presidents or any members of the first family which means that anything people would pay to read is indadmissible. In the past few decades about the only thing to be published under the author’s own name have been recipe books from some of the White House chefs and cooks, though occasionally you’ll have an “anonymous White House employee” cited in a tell all (Kitty Kelley for instance, or the more recent book about he Secret Service in which anonymous agents dissed some as obnoxious (Al Gore, Jimmy Carter) and others as super nice (Bush 2, Clinton) or gave tidbits such as spraying air freshener and making sure there were no cameras anywhere near whenever Obama or Laura Bush smoked a cigarette. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/50 "2011-07-26T01:45:42Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > Or have they all been replaced by “personal assistants”? You’re thinking of a valet. A butler is the manager of the entire staff of a large household (originally, the keeper of the wine cellar – the “bottler”). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/51 "2011-07-26T01:56:41Z")
And if the Jeeves and Wooster/Upstairs-Downstairs/etc. stories are anything to go by, a valet is a literal body servant. He even bathes you and dresses you. Would a man today let a personal assistant do that? ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/52 "2011-07-26T02:26:04Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > I know just what you mean **AK84**! > > Personally I still go peasant shooting . > > And after they’ve been hung for a couple of days they make a very nice supper washed down with a single malt scotch. P **h** easant shooting! Surely you meant pheasant shooting. Good God man, we have appearances to keep up. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/53 "2011-07-26T06:06:08Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > And if the Jeeves and Wooster/Upstairs-Downstairs/etc. stories are anything to go by, a valet is a literal body servant. He even bathes you and dresses you. Would a man today let a personal assistant do that? Jeeves never bathed Bertie. The thought is appalling. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/54 "2011-07-26T06:26:33Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > According to one report I heard on public radio, an honest-to-God Gentleman’s Gentleman is only cost-effective if you’re making over $10 million a year. This was about 15 years ago, so the baseline may have crept up some. If you have to consider whether it would be cost effective to have a butler, you can’t afford one. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/55 "2011-07-26T07:50:34Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > And if the Jeeves and Wooster/Upstairs-Downstairs/etc. stories are anything to go by, a valet is a literal body servant. He even bathes you and dresses you. Would a man today let a personal assistant do that? Wipers! ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/56 "2011-07-26T08:07:17Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > The proper term is _buttress._ > > 😉 I believe the correct term is _buttless_. Their legs keep dropping off. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857/57 "2011-07-26T10:48:44Z")
[quote=“Sampiro, post:41, topic:589857”] Don’t know about anybody else, but ever since the do gooder crackdown on castration occurred I can’t find a butler I trust. ] Personally I think that its political correctness gone mad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-have-a-butler/589857.md?page=2)