Help me locate this passage in an old etiquette book

December 15, 2018 5:45 AM

In my teens, in a spirit of irony, I read a few older etiquette books. This story might or might not be from Emily Post, but it's from something of that era.

It's an anecdote about a young, newly married couple invited to the house of a grander, wealthier family. Wealthy woman tells the young bride “it's just going to be an informal gathering” and the young couple, taking this literally, show up for the party in day clothes.

Alas, when they arrive, "every detail is as formal as it could be" because Mrs. Rich is simply incapable of not doing things to the max, whatever she has said about her intentions.

This silly little story comes back to me from time to time as a wise object lesson in assessing what one's told vs. what's really desired by the personalities in a situation. For example, recently when an art director said she wanted "oh, just something rough" I told one of the other artists "make it tidy, because she can get hung up on irrelevant details if it really is rough" and the old etiquette story was in the back of my mind.

But what's it from?

posted by zadcat to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Best answer: It’s from Emily Post — I know it as quoted in Dorothy Parker’s review in the New Yorker.

There is also the practical-joker side to Mrs. W. Thus does Mrs. Post tell us about that: “For example, Mrs. Worldly writes:

“ ‘Dear Mrs. Neighbor:

“ ‘Will you and your husband dine with us very informally on Tuesday, the tenth, etc.’

“Whereupon, the Neighbors arrive, he in a dinner coat, she in her simplest evening dress, and find a dinner of fourteen people and every detail as formal as it is possible to make it. . . . In certain houses—such as the Worldlys’ for instance—formality is inevitable, no matter how informal may be her ‘will you dine informally’ intention.”
posted by LizardBreath at 5:53 AM on December 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Yes!! Thank you!

(Also for the Dorothy Parker: "Well, Mrs. Worldly, and how would you like a good sock in the nose, you old meat-axe?")
posted by zadcat at 6:14 AM on December 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I also love the fact that a "dinner coat" and an evening dress are still not good enough.
posted by zadcat at 6:38 AM on December 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Right! "Dinner coat" in this context effectively means that he wore a tuxedo. This would actually be correct for the "informal" dress code of that time (day wear would have been a stroller, which is more or less tuxedo on top with striped pants below). "Formal," on the other hand, would have meant a cutaway tailcoat, etc. which the article implies is how everyone else was dressed. In modern parlance, they turned up at a "white tie" event dressed in "black tie." For dress in a dark business suit it would have been "lounge suit" (not to be confused with "leisure suit").

It's pretty common nowadays to see a mixture of formal and informal evening attire (in the traditional sense) as well as lounge suit attire at most any fancy dress event -- much of which comes down to a combination of not understanding and not caring about dress codes (although it's worth pointing out that most everyone who understands, cares). Whereas today many people wouldn't notice or care if you showed up in black tie to a white tie event, there was a time when it was a serious faux pas to dress against code and most everyone who would be invited to such an event understood the code.
posted by slkinsey at 7:27 AM on December 15, 2018 [4 favorites]