Blaikie’s Guide to Modern Manners - Thomas Blaikie

"Руководство по современным манерам" Томаса Блейки - это остроумное, но практичное краткое руководство по современным манерам, которое, как и Линн Трасс, легко и юмористически подходит к теме, которая часто рассматривается в устаревшем, высокомерном стиле. Раньше социальное поведение (как его называли) было логичным, но простым. Были правила, и все знали и следовали им. "Не держите нож как ручку." "Предложите соседу соль / перец / воду / масло. Не ждите, пока он попросит." "Когда вы закончили, оставьте свой нож и вилку на шести / четырех / девяти часах с зубцами вилки повернутыми вверх / вниз". Но сейчас практически не осталось следов этого странного лабиринта "манер". "Приходите, как вы есть", мы говорим. "Будьте собой." Но эра электронной почты и метросексуальности создала целый новый набор социальных дилемм. Мы не знаем, что делать. Наши свободные и легкие способы оставили нас в вакууме неопределенности и смущения. Например, кошмар общения с помощью поцелуев. Сколько раз? В каком порядке? Где? На каком этапе знакомства? А что насчет благодарности? Нужно ли благодарить? Что делать, если гость хочет курить у вас дома? Что надеть на ужин в гостях? Нужно ли принести бутылку? Как общаться с веганами? Мы просто не знаем, как себя вести. Что-то нужно делать, и Томас Блейки, автор "Вы

This witty but practical short manual for modern manners does what biographer Deborah Cameron describes as `taking a familiar and usually rather stuffy subject and treating it with light heart and broad fun'. Like journalist and author Lynne Truss CBE had, Blaikie wants to resuscitate the notion of manners, and to revive a not too unattractive idea of propriety that displays the proper, rather than the merely formulaic and restrictive. Until recently, as she explains, `social etiquette, however it might have been termed, was murkily legalistic and dauntingly elaborate, and everyone knew and obeyed its unwieldy rules'. This world of `manners' faded away almost overnight without much fanfare or protest. A world in which `we simply arrive', that seeks to bow to the vernacular and throw caution to the wind, means also that we find ourselves left in the stomach-turning embarrassment of incongrusities. Social kissing, thanking guests, anniversary dinners and so forth are met with puzzlement and stricken silence.

For once, the author is not someone who suggests that with her experience lies the truth, only that her particular recipe of sociability--often validated in court by others who `nod causally and smile politely'--is true to herself, enjoys established social relationships and makes no bones about occasionally dragging her heels (or stumbling over the first letter of a solitary small pleat). She happily reveals that she wedges into appropriate places, drinks gin and tonics and lets society to the wolves. And in reality, who needs chapters from the Little Grey Book when `you just need to take occasional leaflets from people who live their anxious lives by other, less strict rules and see how they get along?'

She concludes that society would likely be better off if we talked more about manners in our own everyday life. It's not exactly intoxicating reading, but not something you'd put down either: in Blaikies practice, principles never constrict, and outside the realm of fiction or Austen-approved English village life, it's hard to shake the idea that in the end the rigorous adherence to gravity and reason may be as much information as morality.

Сколько раз вы ломали себе голову, раздумывая, например, как правильно держать вилку (сомкнутыми зубцами вверх или вниз), как далеко подается блюдо по этикету – справа или слева, и что делать, если вам предложат вегетарианские блюда во время ужина? В этой книге Томас Блейки, автор бестселлеров о стиле и обычаях современных джентльменов и леди, со свойственной ему харизматичной манерой с улыбкой предлагает нам выйти из лабиринта правил поведения с вилками и ножами.

Электронная Книга «Blaikie’s Guide to Modern Manners» написана автором Thomas Blaikie в году.

Минимальный возраст читателя: 0

Язык: Английский

ISBN: 9780007395521

A witty yet practical short guide to modern manners that, like Lynne Truss, takes a subject often treated in a stuffy, high-handed way and deals with it lightly and humorously.Until recently, social conduct (as it was known), was illogical but easy. There were rules, and everybody knew and adhered to them. ‘Don’t hold your knife like a pen.’ ‘Offer to pass your neighbour the salt/pepper/water/butter. Don’t wait for them to ask.’ ‘When you have finished, leave your knife and fork at six o’clock/four o’clock/nine o’clock with the prongs of the fork turned up/turned down.’Scarcely a trace remains now of this bizarre labyrinthine world of ‘manners’. ‘Come as you are,’ we say. ‘Be yourself.’ But the age of emails and metrosexuality has thrown up a whole new set of social dilemmas. We don’t know what to do. Our free-and-easy ways have left us in a vacuum of uncertainty and embarrassment.Take the nightmare of social kissing. How many times? In what order? Where? At what stage of an acquaintanceship? What about thanking? Do you have to thank at all? What do you do if a guest wants to smoke in your house? What do you wear to a dinner party? Do you have to bring a bottle? How do you deal with vegans?We just don’t know how to behave any more. Something has got to be done, and Thomas Blaikie, author of ‘You Look Awfully Like the Queen’, is the man to do it. He’ll tell you how to tip, how and when to ‘drop in’ on a friend, how to send condolences (is email good enough? will a text message do?), how to avoid being a party bore, how to react politely to flirtation from someone of the opposite sexual persuasion, and myriad other 21st-century social traumas.