Viewers, Watch Your Manners
Dear Miss Manners: In the heart of college-football country, televised games are a social occasion. Unfortunately, though, allegiances to rival in-state teams have, like raging rivers, formed ragged chasms between otherwise civil persons.
At the last television-watching party I hosted, I did not expect friction, because my alma mater was playing an out-of-state team. Still, one barbaric guest cheered the opposing team, not just on spectacular plays, but incessantly throughout the entire game, even after the outcome had long been decided.
Since she had no tie to the opponent, I can only conclude her behavior was designed to needle the host and the other guests.
Do you consider it appropriate for a guest to engage in cheers and taunts against the team that a television-watching party is clearly intended to support? Would I be justified in striking this person from future guest lists?
Gentle Reader: At least don’t invite her to your election night party.
Some television-watching parties are strictly for loyalists, but there are also ones where part of the entertainment is friendly rivalry. Miss Manners would like to think your guest mistook the former for the latter, rather than that she thought it proper to repay your hospitality by annoying everybody else.
Dear Miss Manners: When I was purchasing a pair of new white tennis shoes, friends explained that I cannot wear them until next spring. This was not the first time I’ve been told it’s in bad taste to wear white after Labor Day. Why? If I encounter someone wearing white, how should I react?
Gentle Reader: With well-disguised horror. If Miss Manners can manage to stifle her feelings on this subject for the sake of politeness, surely you can. Her feelings run deep. But please don’t ask her why. Because it’s the custom, that’s why.
If you must know, we all need some seasonal order in our lives. Goodness knows, we can’t depend upon the weather to provide it.
You may have an escape clause, however. Miss Manners was struck by your calling these things tennis shoes. You are either the last person on Earth to do so, or are actually contemplating wearing them for tennis.
While in the act of playing tennis, you may - indeed, you should - wear white shoes, no matter what time of year it happens to be. Similarly, anyone in the act of getting married - no; make that just any bride - or of growing toward toddlerhood may also wear white shoes between Labor and Memorial Day. But no one else.
Dear Miss Manners: I have become concerned about a recent trend at weddings where, in lieu of a receiving line, the bride and groom reenter the sanctuary and greet the guests row by row.
Of course, I have given my best wishes to the happy couple, but I have felt awkward giving handshakes and hugs and being introduced to the bride or groom in front of a congregation of onlookers. Although I have enjoyed the comfort of a church pew while waiting, I’d rather have my privacy when I give greetings.
Gentle Reader: As long as you don’t wrench your back twisting around to deliver hugs while sitting down, Miss Manners does not fully share your disapproval. How much privacy does a receiving line afford, anyway? Or require?
Not that she approves of such unnecessary messing with ceremonial procedure. Concluding the ceremony by receiving guests in church, instead of opening the reception by performing this hostly function, doesn’t make a lot of sense.
She will only say that this is not the worst innovation that is making the rounds. Miss Manners will fondly tolerate a lot from those whose first desire as a married couple is to greet their guests.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate