May I ask, will you please read this story?
By: Shelley Emling, Cox News Service
LONDON - When it came to good etiquette, Barbara Cartland, "the queen of romance," always had loads to say.
According to Cartland, properly raised young people will not enter into unsuitable love affairs. Eight is the perfect number for a dinner party. And a woman should always cook her husband's breakfast, unless she's ill.
These are only a few of the nuggets to be found in Cartland's "Etiquette Handbook: A Guide to Good Behavior from the Boudoir to the Boardroom," which was reissued by Random House, nearly half a century after its first publication.
The move is just one sign of a renewed interest in manners. Many schools in Britain and the United States have introduced etiquette courses covering such topics as which fork to use when, and how to foxtrot.
For example, Brighton College in England rolled out etiquette classes this year after a survey of corporate directors complained that today's graduates were impolite and displayed poor table manners.
Many corporations, too, have implemented etiquette training after seeing the importance of saying or doing the right thing in culturally diverse workplaces.
Cindy Haygood, an instructor at Perfectly Polished, Inc. in Athens, Georgia, said there's a growing interest in etiquette simply because people see so much at stake.
"Our most popular programs are those for collegians and young professionals," she said. "Graduates face a tough job market all over the world …A high social IQ makes for a very confident employee," she said.
In Britain, Nigel Wilcockson, publishing director at Random House, said it's no surprise that more and more people want to learn about the do's and don'ts of dealing with others.
"There are constant laments about how we're not as polite as we were 20 years ago," he said.
Cartland, who died in 2000 at the age of 98, wrote 723 books over seven decades. Her etiquette handbook was published in 1962, when the high society hostess was known as an arbiter of good taste.
Originally Published in the Halifax Herald Limited (www.chronicleherald.ca)
|
