There’s a practical reason for things like uniform cutlery layout. If one person’s fork is on the right and the other is on the left, then they are going to possibly interfere with each other while eating if they are sitting close together. Put them all on the same side, and everyone’s moving arm is as far away as possible from the other’s.
Well, it’s nice to know that I’m eating in such polite company. (slurp)
KellyM, it can’t be disputed that there are hobos with absolutely superb manners. I knew a record salesman who managed to get a seat in the Queen’s box at Ascot while royalty was there. But certain kinds of good manners are certainly intended by the people who use them as marks of social class. Yes, they can be emulated by lower class people. Yes, upper class people can ignore the manners and still be upper class. But somebody who wants to be accepted into refined society (as represented, say, by restaurants at $75 a person), better know most of the proper manners or they might be asked to leave.
It isn’t that manners alone define upper class. The exercise is more like needing 3 out of 7 of the following: money, title, exclusive education, manners, social connections, prestigous job, well-known SO.
Manners help define somebody who’s upper class (or has pretentions). Since some manners help draw a classist distinction, those manners are classist. (I’m just talking about a subset of manners, not things like removing a hat indoors, which everybody’s supposed to do, regardless of social status.)
I’ve always thought of it this way, myself - manners are a matter of intent (to show respect), while etiquette is a proscribed set of forms and procedures intended to display manners. IMO, the former are necessary and the latter can slide.
Oh… High Partly_Warmer.
If that’s the case, how come I’m still pretentious? 
“High”?!:smack:
slinking away
Well, you apologized for your mistake, that shows good manners of a sort… I guess we’ll need to see evidence of your pretention…
I just looked up etiquette in Webster’s. I don’t think it’s going to help our discussion much: “the conduct of procedure required by good breeding or prescribed to be observed in social or official life.”
Ok, I’ll try for the OED, now. It’s gotta be better than that… oh, man, it goes on forever… the Brits… wouldntcha know it…
“… 1c The conventional rules of personal behaviour observed in the intercourse of polite society; the ceremonial observances prescribed by such rules…”
No problem there, I’m often polite during intercourse…
As someone who at one point knew how to speak l33t (for those of you who don’t know, l33t = leet = elite = a heavily corrupted form of English used online. See http://www.megatokyo.com/index.php?strip_id=172 for a perfect example), I would just like to say that in some cases, “manners” are deliberately designed to be elitist. I don’t know enough about the history of etiquette to comment about the origins of any IRL manners, but I do know that the rules of l33t are designed so that one who is fluent can instantly tell how “l33t” someone else is by how they use it. “||4m4z” who are not truly “l33t” can then be ignored or worse.
On a side note, (assuming this hasn’t been covered before and I just missed it), I’d like to draw a distinction between manners and courtesy. Common courtesy is what dictates that you don’t jump queues, or holding the door for a lady, or blow your nose at a table, and these certainly do show respect for the other person. Manners, like the little pinkie thing when holding a spoon, or sitting with your back straight, IMHO generally tend to be things that have no real value except to indicate that you’re well bred. There may be some overlap between the two, but IMO they are not synonymous, and that the distinction is a valid one. Assuming that, the next logical question would be: where does each individual custom fall?
It is a common misconception that manners require you to, e.g., hold your pinky up while eating. That is widely understood to be an anarchism. This rule did in fact make sense back in the days when we ate without utensils and had salt cellars on the table; you kept your pinky clear of food because you used it to dip salt from the common salt cellar. We no longer use common salt cellars, and thus no longer have any need for this rule. People who expect it to be followed anyway are merely being pretentious; they are not being mannerly.
A great deal of this discussion is being driven by ignorance of what manners are. There is no excuse for continuing the discussion in the face of exposed ignorance. Please educate yourselves (many good sources have been cited in the discussion) before proceeding.
>> It is a common misconception that manners require you to, e.g., hold your pinky up while eating. That is widely understood to be an anarchism.
So that’s how you can tell anarchists!
I meant “anachronism”, sorry. 
Manners (Webster’s): “… social conduct or rules of conduct as shown in prevalent customs…” “good manners… a distinguished or stylish air”
BlackKnight, the “stylish air” seems to relate to your OP comment about making mountains out of molehills. Being in style is frequently a matter of taking something beyond the “minimum” requirements. Bowing, instead of just saying “Hi!” Opening a door for a lady, instead of just stepping back and letting her open it herself. Standing when a judge comes into a courtroom.
I like style. It’s showing a little extra respect (potentially for someone who’s a complete stranger). It’s a chance to show you’re friendly. In the case of showing style to someone interesting of the opposite sex, it’s a polite way of showing off a little.
So, I’m going to buy that manners sometimes mean making mountains out of molehills, but not that this behavior is nonfunctional.
In addition, it helps to know which side your drinking glass is supposed to be at.
I’ve dined with louts who grabbed at either their left- or right-hand glass, as they saw fit. Of course, this inevitably left some poor soul without a drinking glass, since he was flanked by individuals who took the only glasses within his reach.
So yes, cutlery etiquette can serve a most definite purpose.
So now being born left handed makes one a “lout”?
No, not grabbed with the left hand - grabbed the one either to the left or the right of their place setting. If everyone grabs to glass to the left, things work fine. If everyone grabs the one to the right, things work equally well. If some take the one to the left, and others take the one to the right, someone will end up without a glass, becasue the person to the right took the glass at the thirsty person’s right, and the person to the left took the one at the thirsty person’s left. Which glass is for which place is an arbitrary rule. It works as well for left and right, just as green meaning “stop” and red meaning “go” would work as well. What’s important for things to work well in both cases is that there is a standard, not what the standard is.
I’m sorry for the tone of my last post, doreen. What bugs me is placing a moral value on arbitrary rules.
I’ll even agree that most who favor the rules are not classist, but the attitude shown by some posters; that baseball hats are always innapropriate, that people who cut their meat differently should eat hungryman dinners, etc… just pisses me off.
My friends and I are better than those who would judge us based on our choice of hat, or how we dress, or what restaurants we go to.
grendel72,
I don’t think anyone has mentioned morality at all, or even being a better person in terms of the arbitrary rules. No one has said it’s immoral to wear a baseball cap in even in the most expensive of restaurants , or that they are a better person because they don’t cut their meat up all at once , or even because they don’t blow their nose at the table. Even the Hungry-Man post in the other thread wasn’t about people who eat differently being forced to eat TV dinners , but rather an allusion to different manners being appropriate at different times
And realistically, that’s how people are judged on their manners- on whether they know or care enough to follow the appropriate behavior for a particular situation. You’re not an evil person if you show up to a formal wedding in jeans and a T-shirt, or wear a baseball cap in a fancy restaurant., and I haven’t seen anybosy suggest that. People have suggested that they might not invite someone who doesn’t know (or more likely doesn’t care) how to behave to a decent restaurant, but that’s a long way from saying it’s immoral.
I guess I’m just being picky, but using names like “lout” or calling someone “childish” because of the way they eat sure sounds judgemental to me. The phrasing of the hat issue was:
which once again sounds, to me, like a judgement call.
“Manners” seem like a phony affectation to me, truly showing respect for others has nothing to do with it.
Didn’t say it wasn’t a judgment- but it’s not a judgment of morality or who’s a better person.
Doesn’t mention morality or worth as a person.One may be a truly good , moral person, but still have the manners of a lout, or an evil person with impeccable manners. Morality is not the only basis for making judgements, and I have yet to see anyone in this thread or the other making a moral judgement based on manners. You want to say people are judged as not knowing or caring about expected behavior based on their manners- sure they are. But manners are not used to judge morality anymore than knowing and following the rules of baseball is.
Remember that study where they put some rats in a cage with plenty of food and water, and as time went by the rats multiplied to the point where they eventually killed and ate each other? Well, technically, neither do I, but that’s besides the point. Go to Tokyo, BlackKnight. There you will see the practical aspect of manners, without which, the Japanese would be turning on one another in a New York City heartbeat.
Manners/ettiquette can be classist, whatever the hell that means, but it’s a sword that cuts both ways. And it’s not necessarily about respect. With the proper skill and training, you can cut someone to ribbons and never break a sweat.
Call me an elitist prig, but I consider good manners and a good vocabulary to be hallmarks of a person I would probably like and respect, and as for hats, well, P.J. O’Rourke said it best…" A man should remove his hat upon entering a room, and leave it off for the rest of his life. Nothing looks stupider on a guy than a hat."
His refusal to open car doors indicated to me that he wasn’t concerned with making a good impression on me; that he didn’t care what I thought about him; that he wasn’t willing to do a simple thing that would have pleased me. What seems shallow on the surface has deeper meanings. A case of the fish beneath the ice, you know?
BWA HA HA HA HA HA! But, you see, if your friend did that, they would be unmannerly, because they make you uncomfortable unneedlessly.
Oh, and FWIW: Advanced Tableware 101 is really easy; you just start with the outlying silverware for each course and work your way inwards (towards your plate).
JanusZeal, I don’t think there is a difference between manners and courtesy.