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For the last time, fellow Americans, it is not proper etiquette just because English people do it that way. If it's called the Continental method, it's probabl
by dkarl 16y ago
For the last time, fellow Americans, it is not proper etiquette just because English people do it that way. If it's called the Continental method, it's probably the result of the English blindly copying the French. Isn't it silly of us to insecurely copy the manners of a country that insecurely copies the manners of another country?
- nailer 16y agoIt's designed as a mechanism to spot people of lower class, and some would argue it still works. Go dining with a seriously monied American and see what they do.
- kgo 16y agoSure it's silly. But it'd be sillier to either (a) invent a whole new etiquette system from scratch or (b) descend into thunderdome-level anything-goes anarchy at the dinner table just to prove we're not silly. Before you know it, people would be cracking open eggs at the big end.
- dkarl 16y agoYou forgot (c) don't panic and abandon your current system as invalid just because it doesn't match somebody else's system. It's false to regard one system as trumping another. We do not regard it as a breach in etiquette when someone eats in the "Continental" way in a setting where the American style prevails. The only reason to be embarrassed about the opposite is our American tendency to assume that European manners are more refined than our own, to the extent that we feel a little guilty when we go straight home after a soccer game without beating anyone up.