Etiquette by Emily Post (top novels to read .txt) 📖

[C] In South America alone, where out of courtesy to those who also consider themselves "Americans," the Embassies and Legations of our country are known as those of The United States of America. But in all other countries of the world we are known simply as "Americans"—it is the only name we have. We are not United Staters or United Statian—there is not even a word to apply to us! To speak of the American Minister to this country or that, and of the American Embassy in Paris for instance, is entirely correct.

Foreign Languages

In the Latin countries, grace and facility of speech is an object of lifelong cultivation—and no one is considered an educated person who can not speak several languages well. Those who speak many fluently, by the way, are seldom those who constantly interlard their own tongue with words from another.

Not to understand any foreign languages would be a decided handicap in European society, where conversation is very apt to turn polyglot, beginning in one tongue and going on in a second and ending in a third. So that one who knows only English is often in the position of a deaf person, even though Europeans are invariably polite and never let a conversation run long in a language which all those present do not understand. It might easily happen that a French lady and an American, neither understanding the tongue of the other, meet at the house of an Italian, where there is also an Italian monolinguist, so that the hostess has to talk in three languages at once.

It is unreasonable to expect the average American to be a linguist; we are too far removed from foreign countries. As a matter of fact, if you would make yourself agreeable, it is much better (unless your facility was acquired as a child or you have a talent amounting to genius for accent and construction), to make it a rule when you lunch or dine with Europeans to talk English, since all Latins acutely suffer at hearing their language distorted. English, on the other hand, is not beautiful in sound to the foreign ear; it is a series of esses and shushes, lumped with consonants like an iron-wheeled cart bumping over a cobble-stoned street. The Latin's accent in English is annoying even to us at times, but the English accent in French, Italian or Spanish is murderous! Furthermore, the Latin passionately loves his language in the way the Westerner loves his city; he simply can not endure to have it abused, and execrates the person who does so. And, proportionately, he loves the few who prove they share his love by speaking it creditably.

To Improve One's Accent

If you want to improve your accent, nothing can so help you as going to the theater abroad until your ears literally absorb the sounds! All people are imitative. There are few who do not gradually lose the purity of a good foreign accent when long away from Europe, and all speak more fluently when their ears become accustomed to the sound.

The theater is not only the best possible place to hear correctly enunciated speech, but a play of contemporary life is equally valuable as a study in manners. There is also a suavity of grace in the way Europeans bow and stand and sit, and in the way they speak, that is unconsciously imitated. These "manners" need not—in fact, should not—be gushing or mincing, but you gradually perceive that jerking ramrod motions and stalking into a drawing-room like a grenadier are less impressive than awkward.

The Spoiled American Girl

The subject of American manners, as they appear to Europeans, cannot be dismissed without comment on a reprehensible type of American girl who flourishes on shipboard, on tours, and in public places generally—but most particularly in the large and expensive hotels of Continental resorts.

If she and her family have a "home," they are never in it, and if they have any object in life other than letting her follow her own unhampered inclinations, it is not apparent to the ordinary observer. Such a girl is always over-dressed, she wears every fashion in its extremest exaggeration, she sparkles with jewelry, and reeks of scent, she switches herself this way and that, and is always posing in public view and playing to the public gallery. She generally has a small brother who refuses to go to bed at night, or to stop making the piazza chairs into a train of cars, or to use the public halls as a skating rink. When he is not making a noise, he is eating. And his "elegant" sister looks upon him with disdain.

Sister, meanwhile, jingling with chains and bangles, decked in scarfs and tulle and earrings, leans on or against whatever happens to be convenient, flirting with any casual stranger who comes along. She invariably goes to her meals alone—evidently thinking her parents should be kept apart from her. She is never away from the Kurhaus or Casino, abroad or the hotel lobby in America. She is nearly always alone, and the book she is perpetually reading is always opened at the same page, and she is sure to look up as you pass. She is very ready to be "picked up" and to confide her life's history, past, present and future, to any stranger, especially a young one of the opposite sex. She is rude only to her mother and father. She is also (we know, but Europe doesn't) a perfectly "good" girl. Her lack of etiquette is shocking, but her morals are above reproach. She does not even mean to be rude to her parents, and she has no idea that the things she does are exactly those which condemn her in the opinion of strangers. If she were constantly with, and obviously devoted to her mother, she would make an infinitely better impression, both as to good form and as to heart, than by segregating herself so that she can be joined by any haphazard youth who strolls into view, and thereby cheapening not only herself but the name of the American girl in general.

Curiously enough, if she marries in Europe, she is apt to "settle down" and become an altogether admirable example of American-European womanhood, because she is sound fruit at heart—merely wrapped in tawdry gilt paper trimming by her adoring but ignorantly unwise parents who, in their effort to show her off, disguise the very qualities which should have been accentuated.

Ladies Traveling Alone In Europe.

Europeans can not possibly understand how any lady of social position can be without a maid. A lady traveling alone, therefore, has this trifling handicap to start with. It is a very snobbish opinion, and one who has the temerity to attempt traveling all by herself has undoubtedly the ability to see it through. She need after all merely behave with extreme quietness and dignity and she can go from one end of the world to the other without molestation or even difficulty—especially if she is anything of a linguist.

In going from one place to another, it is wiser to write as long as possible ahead for accommodations—possibly giving the name of the one (if any) who recommended the hotel. But in going far off into Asia or other "difficult" countries, she would better join friends or at least a personally conducted tour, unless she has the mettle of a Burton or a Stanley.

Motoring In Europe

Motoring in Europe is perfectly feasible and easy. A car has to be put in a crate to cross the ocean, but in crossing the channel between England and France, no difficulty whatever is experienced.