With anyone else, this post would invoke Poe’s Law.
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RE: Avoiding touching men. A very foreign concept to this American. But I believe there have been threads on this subject, and I won’t go into that again here.
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RE: Congratulating a bride. Never knew it was rude. I’ve probably done it dozens of times. I’m sorry.
If a bride is congratulated at a wedding, and no one is offended, is it still rude? Or is that a philosophical question?
Oh for fuck’s sake. You didn’t do the experiment, did you? You’d prefer to maintain your fantasy that people know about this rule than actually to find out.
It’s scary to realize you’re wrong, so I understand why you won’t actually ask the people around you. Here’s hoping some day you find the courage to test your assumptions.
At the core of a lot of “politeness that isn’t polite” behavior is a focus more on the action itself than the effect that the action has on its recipient.
It reminds me of something I once read, about a guy who serenaded his girlfriend by singing loudly to her on the subway and she didn’t like it, and the guy was baffled because it was a “romantic” gesture - why wouldn’t a “romantic” gesture be good? He wasn’t even paying attention to whether she enjoyed it or not so much as he was focused on the fact that he was doing a *romantic *gesture. (Perhaps encouraged by chick-flicks that exhibit precisely this attitude - do something OUTRAGEOUS but ROMANTIC and your boyfriend/girlfriend will LOVE it!)
Same with some “polite” folks. They don’t really care whether you want the cookies or not so much as the fact that they are doing you a GOOD gesture!
(This gets particularly infuriating in Chinese culture. There’s a long Chinese tradition of essentially taking people’s “no” to be “yes” and “yes” to be “no” with regards to gift-giving, running errands, doing favors, etc.)
No, here’s how it works: She’s right either way. Either people do know about the rule, in which case she’s right. Or, they don’t know about the rule, in which case our society is in a state of shocking moral depravity, which also makes her right.
So, doing the experiment would be a waste of time, because it makes no difference whether or not people follow, know about, or remotely agree with this idiotic so-called rule. See? It’s simple, really.
It’s not rude.
I hate having people say “bless you” when I sneeze, expecting a “thank you” in return. It’s just a natural bodily function, you don’t need to bless me for it- just shut up and stay out of the path of snotlets.
Just to add to the sample size-
I’m baffled by the idea that saying congratulations to a bride is rude. I was congratulated numerous times on my own wedding day, and I’m pretty sure that each and every time I smiled and said “Thank you!” Never occurred to me that it could be construed as offensive.
I’m also sure I’ve congratulated other brides at their weddings, and nobody’s ever appeared offended. I would have been shocked and confused if I were asked to leave for having done so.
I ran across the rule about not congratulating the bride in my dewy youth. Now, none of my friends would have cared, but one or two had a mother or prospective MIL who was the type to point out an error. To save my friends and potentially myself from embarrassment, I’ve worked consciously on a phrase to say, be it weddings or babies or anything else with a slippery slope between modern standards written etiquette from previous centuries:
That’s wonderful. I’m happy for you both. All my best wishes.
Then shut the hell up and let them tell you their story. Stay on those grounds and I don’t think you can go wrong.
I have arthritis which sometimes makes me walk very slowly. Sometimes male co-workers will indicate I should proceed them through the doorway to the halls. And our halls are long, fairly narrow, and have many intersections. I’ll often step to the side and say “Please go ahead, I’m walking very slowly today.” Most thank goodness, will nod and go past. A few seem to think Emily Post (or more likely, their mother) will send cosmic thunderbolts to strike them down if they proceed an older woman down a hallway. Just like the woman at the back of an elevator who says “Please exit ahead of me; it will be so much easier for me to get out after you.” Or the woman who’s 20 yards back in the parking lot who says “Please don’t wait; I’ve got the door.” If someone really is asking you politely to ignore the conventional rules, it’s most polite to do so.
I don’t feel very happy about anyone walking behind me who is obviously able to walk much faster, is impatient to get where he needs to go, and has nothing better to do while we stroll at my pace than observe how awkwardly I am moving. It’s not pleasant from my point of view; it must be a disaster from behind. Likewise, if I’m the parking lot dawdler, I might have shoes that aren’t conducive to rushing* or I might not like wearing my coffee instead of drinking it or a phone call may be vibrating in my purse which I’d rather answer outside. Or on one horribly memorable occasion, my tights were rolling down over my hips and making their way south as quickly as they could. Only by walking knock-kneed and very slowly did I have a prayer of making it to a private place where I could give everything a giant hitch.
If you are asked to please don’t bother, then please don’t bother. Your duty is discharged. The polite thing to do in this case is also to forget it. The person who has asked you not to bother might have a very good reason. It would be quite rude of you to speculate what that reason is and to perhaps attribute motives of malice when the truth is they wish to avoid embarrassment. And truly polite people would never embarrass on purpose.
*Not me personally; I’m far too fond of my feet to put on heels. Anymore. There was a day, my child…
You sometimes get the same issue when people are offering to pay for things that you don’t want to accept payment for. This comes up a lot when my daughters babysit for their younger cousins and their aunts/uncles insist on paying. My feeling is that you decline to accept payment once or twice, but if they insist, then you graciously accept the money rather than continuing to make a fight about it.
Equally baffled as well. To my ears, saying “best wishes” sounds kind of like “Well, good luck with that!”
I am left with the impression that ZPG Zealot was raised in 17th century Vienna. Or is stuck in a time warp perhaps?
I, too, never heard about not saying “Congratulations” to the bride. And I clearly remember the rules: things like men never wear hats indoors, women wear gloves and their purses match their shoes, women don’t wear white after Labor Day, etc. Basically, the early Mad Men era, but I was in southwestern Virginia, a place that had black elevator operators until the mid 60s at least.
I knew about the distinction between saying congratulations to the groom and felicitations to the bride. I learned it as a quaint custom that I found charming. However, I’ve never met a soul (until now) who took it so seriously that they would be actually offended if someone said “congrats” to the bride. It’s an outmoded custom that is quaint but no longer has real meaning. Following it can be a cute thing. Not following it is not an offensive thing.
[feeling compelled to point out the correct word]
precede, not proceed
[whew! got that out of my system]
Right. Wouldn’t violating this quaint custom be a minor faux pas, at the very worst? I am wondering sometimes where certain posters are buying their industrial strength panty twisters.
Yup, minor if that. Right up there with not remembering to use Master as an honorific for a young man under 18. I’d do it when writing formal invitations, but to be quaint, not out of a requirement.
The reasoning is cute to me and there is some archaic reasoning behind it, but that’s all it is, quaint.
No poster has said that they would be offended by this, or that they know anyone who would be. The only claim is that they were raised with, or told of, a rule of ettiquette to the effect that grooms are congratulated, but brides are wished well. This is an admittedly old-fashioned rule, and nobody has suggested that a failure to observe it gives offence.
What’s actually going on here, I think, is an expansion of the sense of the word “congratulate”. Originally, to congratulate somebody was to acknowledge and celebrate their good fortune. Thus, you might congratulate somebody on a lucky escape, but you wouldn’t congratulate someone on passing an exam because that would imply that he was lucky to do so and, by rights, he ought to have failed. That distinction has largely been lost, but it is preserved in the (now obsolete) rule of ettiquette, because congratulating a woman on her engagement or marriage used to imply that she was, frankly, lucky to have landed a solvent man, with all his own teeth and limbs.
Really? No poster has said this?