# Why do people hate Miss Manners? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 4, 2005, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441 "2005-02-04T22:49:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/21 "2005-02-05T20:20:40Z")
I’m in the “she’s a hoot” category. It’s all part of the persona. I find her to be really funny. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/22 "2005-02-05T20:41:00Z")
I like reading her column for the outrageous questions (like the ones from people who want to know how to charge people for attending their anniversary party) and her snarky answers. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/23 "2005-02-05T20:57:48Z")
Telling people how they’re heathens who have no right to exist in ‘polite’ society is not a real job. She’s preachy. And no one - _no one_ should think that much about how to be ‘proper’. The Victorian era, last time I checked, is over. ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/24 "2005-02-05T21:08:20Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > Telling people how they’re heathens who have no right to exist in ‘polite’ society is not a real job. She’s preachy. And no one - _no one_ should think that much about how to be ‘proper’. The Victorian era, last time I checked, is over. See, that’s exactly what she _doesn’t_ do. I think the name gives people the wrong impression. She’s basically about not making the other person feel bad. So the manners guidlines are thing like: don’t ask prying questions, don’t comment negatively on other people’s appearances/actions, don’t send out an “invitation” that is really a solicitation for money, the people you invite to a party shouldn’t be expected to pay for it, etc. Most manners are actually common-sense if you think of the reasons behind them. I read Miss Manners every week and have most of her books and I’d like to see one actual column that implies anything close to what you’re saying. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/25 "2005-02-06T03:45:57Z")
The only time I get a little fed up with her is when she goes on and on with a convoluted, run-on sentence. She does that a lot, and I guess it’s part of her schtick. But I do look forward to reader her column. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/26 "2005-02-06T10:00:59Z")
> [@Fanny May](#): > > I hate it when she lets snoots get away with being distainful. > I hate the way people write to her with absurd questions like “Why is it now proper behavior to ask for donations in an invitation? I just got one …” > She never manages to tell them "Not everything that happens to you is ‘now proper behavior’ - If someone mugged you, would you write to me ‘Why is mugging now proper behavior?’ " Actually, she says that all the time, I’ve found, with good reason. > [@](#): > > Some people take that as a personal affront rather than an opportunity to better themselves. Well, she has pointed out that it’s rude to deliver unsolicited commentary on manners to people who aren’t in the next generation of your own family – whereas she, on the other hand, is solicited to do so. One thing I think people do is equate good manners with “the most formal behaviour at all times,” when in fact it is rude to behave formally at informal occasions because it would be ostentatious and pompous to do so. (She gives Marie Antoinette as an example.) There are ways to be mannerly in all social situations, and they do not mean imitating the rich or using forms for a social circle other than your own. ---
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/27 "2005-02-06T15:08:20Z")
> [@Cub Mistress](#): > > Just a question, not being snarky: Do you find a $550 purse to be pretentious? I ask because I see high school girls (at a public high school )with Kate Spade, Dooney & Bourke, Coach etc bags ALL the time and they don’t even have jobs. > > At least Miss Manners has a career and an income. I say more power to her! Not passing judgment, as implied. To convert to present-day (2005) dollars, she was fussing about her $1,000 purse. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/28 "2005-02-06T16:45:00Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > The only time I get a little fed up with her is when she goes on and on with a convoluted, run-on sentence. I find it hard to believe that Miss Manners, that bastion of correctness, that upholder of all that is proper, would commit a run-on sentence. Convoluted, maybe, but if you analyze her sentences I suspect you’ll find all of them to be grammatically correct. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/29 "2005-02-06T17:00:17Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > Telling people how they’re heathens who have no right to exist in ‘polite’ society is not a real job. She’s preachy. And no one - _no one_ should think that much about how to be ‘proper’. The Victorian era, last time I checked, is over. Posted as someone who, apparently, does not read Miss Manners. I suspect that the OP is in error in that there are not “so many” people who hate Miss Manners. My guess would be that an overwhelming majority of people who have read Miss Manners enjoy the column, a rather tiny minority of people who simply do not believe in “manners” object to the idea on principle, and some miniscule number of people who are truly crude (or who have been smacked down in her column) may actually hate her. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/30 "2005-02-06T20:05:40Z")
Once, in response to an inquiry about a neighbor’s rather ostentatious display of expensive furnishings, Miss Manners cited (the fictional) Hilda Rumpole (wife to Horace), who took great offense when someone complimented her dishes. “The very idea” Mrs. Rumpole exclaimed (privately, to her husband, later), “Noticing people’s things!” Miss Manners pointed out that it used to be the rule that you took no notice of the quality or value of people’s things – be it their silverware, their carriage, their house. You were expected to behave the same whether you were being entertained at the table in earl’s mansion, or in his gamekeeper’s cottage. This isn’t snobbery; it is, in fact, the reverse. We could do worse than to bring this rule back. Note also that while Hilda took offense, she didn’t do anything about it until the guests had departed and only her husband was present. This is absolutely correct behavior. We would do well to bring this rule back as well. ---
**Author:** ![Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Can_Handle_the_Truth)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/31 "2005-02-07T00:16:42Z")
I have loved Miss Manners for about 20 years, ever since I read this: > [@](#): > > Dear Miss Manners: After making love, my husband always says to me, “Thank you, Babe!” I am at a loss as to how to respond to this. Please help! > > Dear Miss Whatever: proper responses to “Thank you” include “You’re welcome”, “Thank _you_”, and “Oh, it was nothing”; however, Miss Manners does not recommend the latter in this particular case. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/32 "2005-02-07T00:22:23Z")
> [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > To convert to present-day (2005) dollars, she was fussing about her $1,000 purse. Um, “fussing”? To whom did she report the value of her belongings? I wouldn’t call notifying the police or one’s insurance company “fussing,” and I find it hard to beleive she would have complained about the monetary value of her lost things to the press. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/33 "2005-02-07T02:09:28Z")
Miss Manners is a feminist, and that is only one of the reasons I love her column. She stands against bigotry and sexism. She often tells people that it is not nice to insult others, no matter how lofty ones motives. So people who like to insult others for their own good may well dislike her. As would those who like to charge for hospitality, and those who don’t like repaying hospitality with hospitality. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/34 "2005-02-07T02:44:38Z")
I suspect that some people have Miss Manners confused with Martha Stewart. The principle difference is not that Miss Manners is not an inmate in a federal prison. I also suspect that people who are put off by Miss Manners have never been exposed to the pretentious and self laudatory crap that makes up most of the text of the mainline etiquette books. When my daughters came up on the age we could expect that they would marry, I hid Mrs. Geldings dog eared copy of Emily Post and bought her Judith Martin’s \* Manners for the Millennium\*, or something like that. I don’t think I could have endured six months of consulting Deal Old Emily on ever minute point. In contrast Miss Manner’s guidance was practical, economically feasible and occasionally witty. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/35 "2005-02-07T09:31:33Z")
The good advice, and the general tendency to apply the concept of etiquette in the sense of making others comfortable and avoiding rudeness (rather than limiting discussion to such things as ice cream knives, which seems to be most folks’ conception of “manners”) are wonderful. But I love her for her wit and humor. In one column, she said (and this is a bad paraphrase): “A lady may, under certain circumstances, murder her husband. But a woman who walks down the street smoking will never be a lady.” ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/36 "2005-02-07T10:39:42Z")
As long as she’s not the etiquette maven who says it’s ok to ask for money in lieu of gifts on a wedding invitation, I’m all for her. How rude would you have to be to a) point out that you expect gifts from your guests b) tell them that whatever gift they were planning to get, you’d rather have cash! There is an etiquette “expert” who penned a little poem, a horrible piece of doggerel about a “money tree” to include on the invitation. I was under the impression it was Miss Manners, but if it’s not, I’d like her much more. ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/37 "2005-02-07T10:53:00Z")
> [@irishgirl](#): > > There is an etiquette “expert” who penned a little poem, a horrible piece of doggerel about a “money tree” to include on the invitation. I was under the impression it was Miss Manners, but if it’s not, I’d like her much more. Never. Never, ever. Miss Manners does not condone asking for gifts or money on an invitation for anyone or for any reason. I am absolutely certain this is not her. My mother axe-murdering my father would shock me less than Miss Manners offering bad money-tree poetry for invitations. ---
**Author:** ![theLaughingMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@theLaughingMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theLaughingMan)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/38 "2005-02-07T11:09:52Z")
> [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > Not passing judgment, as implied. > > To convert to present-day (2005) dollars, she was fussing about her $1,000 purse. Can you provide some sort of site for this? I’ve looked at currency/year converters and they all come up with $550 (1990) = $550 (2005) ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/39 "2005-02-07T12:51:13Z")
The etiquette game is a bit like the debunking-urban-legends game – people hate the messenger. So someone who is planning to put registry cards in her wedding invitations writes in to Miss Manners to ask about it. Miss Manners shoots her down (in hilarious Miss Manners-style) and, not only does the Gentle Reader in question get pissed off, and all the other Gentle Readers who want to put registry cards in their wedding invitations do as well. And, **irishgirl**? That wasn’t Miss Manners. If it’s the same incident I’m thinking of, it wasn’t even an etiquette expert. It was “Dear Prudence,” the nom de plume for Margo Howard – daughter of the late Ann Landers. She writes a column on “manners and morals” – standard agony-aunt stuff. Here’s a link to the original [column](http://slate.msn.com/id/2086878/) – it’s the second letter down. Prudie took it in the shorts for that response, BTW, and [retracted it](http://slate.msn.com/id/2087139/). Then a bunch of people wrote in (probably people who ‘hate’ Miss Manners) demanding that she [retract the retraction](http://slate.msn.com/id/2088041/#ContinueArticle). ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441/40 "2005-02-07T13:47:57Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > The good advice, and the general tendency to apply the concept of etiquette in the sense of making others comfortable and avoiding rudeness (rather than limiting discussion to such things as ice cream knives, which seems to be most folks’ conception of “manners”) are wonderful. But I love her for her wit and humor. In one column, she said (and this is a bad paraphrase): “A lady may, under certain circumstances, murder her husband. But a woman who walks down the street smoking will never be a lady.” Miss Manners has pointed out from the beginning that “Manners are what you do in public. Morality is what you do in private.” Hence the distinction. Once she ended an article about how to eat several different types of ice cream concoctions (sundaes, cones, etc) by saying “Miss Manners will not give instructions on how to eat ice cream out of the carton with a mixing spoon in front of the freezer in pajamas because Miss Manners doesn’t belive anyone does such a thing.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-hate-miss-manners/288441.md?page=3)