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Manners at the table are a small but significant part of politeness, respectability and civility. Children and adults need the reinforcement of good table manners that can occur only when a family eats together regularly. The need is certainly great. Just watch school children eat among themselves or even with adults present. They tend to engage in some pretty unrefined behavior.
Moved by these thoughts, I recently pulled off my shelf a book that had accumulated quite a bit of dust. Leafing through its pages, I quickly realized it had been sitting unused far too long. It is called “War Against Indiscipline (W.A.I.) Handbook”. It was published in 1986; some years ago and yet, the rules of social graces it details seem to represent some exotic historical epoch. It helped me realize how casual and low-minded our culture has become and how quickly we are losing good manners.
I found one bit in this book extremely helpful: a list of rules for dinner table conduct that parents should teach children. Here, summarized from ‘W. A. I. Handbook’, are some things we should not do at the table:
- Do not be late for any meal if you are an invited guest. This is a wrong attitude to your host; to other guests and to the food.
- Do not be late at the domestic table as this is wrong to your family and does not promote family harmony and good feeling.
- Do not, at a dinner party, seat yourself before the ladies are seated or before your host or hostess gives the signal.
- Do not sit a foot away from the table or jammed up against it.
- D not introduce, if you introduce at all after your guests are seated.
- Do not tuck your napkin under your chin or spread it upon your breast. Bibs and tuckers are for the nursery.
- Do not serve gentlemen guests at your table until all the ladies are served, including those who are members of your household.
- Do not eat from the end of the spoon but from the side.
- Do not gurgle or draw in your breath or make other noises when eating.
- Do not bend over your food or drop your head with each mouthful. Keep an upright attitude as nearly as you can without being stiff.
- Do not bite your bread. Break it off.
- Do not bite your bread into your soup.
- Do not eat with your knife. Never put your knife into your mouth. It is bad breeding.
- Do not load up the fork with food with your knife, and then cart it as it were, to your mouth. Take up on the fork what it can easily carry and no more.
- Do not handle fork and knife awkwardly. Let the handles of both knife and fork rest in the palm of the hand.
- Do not stab with the fork or handle it as if it were a dagger. Always carry food to the mouth with an inward curve of the fork or spoon.
- Do not eat fast or gorge. Always take plenty of time. Haste is vulgar.
- Do not fill your mouth with too much food.
- Do not masticate audibly. Eat gently and quietly and easily.
- Do not put your knife into the butter, into the salt cellar or into any dish.
…To be Continued
About the Author:
Rev.
Nelson Iluno is an Anglican priest. He had lived and worked in three Provinces and Dioceses of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). He is also an author of two books: A Glossary of Ecclesiastical and Liturgical Terms and Give to the Winds Your Fears, an editor and a tutor. His opinions on religious matters have earned him national recognition in Nigeria. Presently, he is a freelance writer, a weekly online columnist in the Nigeriaworld.com.
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This article was first published on 26th January 2016 and updated on February 25th, 2016 at 3:11 pm
nelson-iluno
Nelson Iluno holds post graduate degrees in Theology and Church History from Crowther Graduate Theological Seminary, Abeokuta, and is a graduate of West Africa Theological Seminary, Lagos. He is the author of A Glossary of Ecclesiastical and Liturgical Terms and Give to the Winds Your Fears, and has written numerous articles, contributed to daily devotional guides, and edits the Mothers’ Union annual magazine.
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