Family heirloom that’s just for show criticized by friend
I have a lovely silver candelabra that is a family piece. I keep it on display on a sideboard in my dining room with white taper candles. It is purely decorative; I have never had the occasion to use it for its intended purpose.
At a shower at my house, one of my friends took me aside to tell me that I was committing a decorating/ etiquette faux pas by having unlit candles in the candelabra. She said that I should at least present the appearance that the candelabra was used if I were going to display it.
I had never heard of this. Is she right? Do I need to light all of the candles, let them burn for a little while and then blow them out?
Gentle reader: If Miss Manners explains this to you, are you going to use it as evidence that the entire field of etiquette — the whole paralegal system to regulate human social behavior at a tolerant level — is silly? Probably. Nevertheless, she will plunge ahead.
The idea is to avoid displaying things purely for show. Supposedly, you furnish your house for practical reasons — which can include the pleasure you derive from nonutilitarian objects for their aesthetic or sentimental value. That is how you think of your family candelabra.
Nevertheless, it is obviously a utilitarian object, the practical use of which you are ignoring. The candles, being there just for display, are a bit like the fancy guest towels that hosts resent their guests using. Burning the wicks suggests acknowledging their use, even if you do not continue to use them.
Is failing to do so a high crime? Certainly not. Especially when compared to criticizing the decor in a house in which you are a guest.
Dear Miss Manners:
When I fly, I like to sit in the window seat. I enjoy the light, the additional space, the quiet away from the aisle and especially the view. From plane windows, I have seen the Grand Canyon, the Alps, a comet, towering thunderclouds with lightning flashes and many other wonders.
Occasionally a person sitting next to me asks me to close the window so that they can watch a movie. I don’t want to. They can watch the movie anytime, but my show exists only at 35,000 feet.
I have tried to explain, but I often just cave in. Is there a polite way for me to handle this and still get my view?
Gentle reader: In the days when paper airplane tickets were ubiquitous, airlines were happy to print unpleasant truths on the back, albeit in grammatically tortured, microscopic print.
Miss Manners recalls that the substance was that your flight may not leave on time — or at all; that it may leave without you or your baggage; or that worse things may happen en route.
What should have been included was that you will have to suspend, for a time, normal expectations about your control of the space around you — or to put it more succinctly, to share.
Tell your seatmate you are happy to close the shade during his movie, but would like to have it open as you cross the mountains, or whenever the movement of the aircraft suggests there is something worth seeing.
Dear Miss Manners:
Should I say “please” and “thank you” to my virtual assistants? I’m not happy with the ongoing dehumanization of our society — for example, replacing the jobs of human beings with checkout robots so we don’t have to stand in line and look at our neighbors for four minutes.
I don’t ordinarily say, “Siri, please add milk to my grocery list.” But at the same time, I feel like we lose something as human beings when we stop being courteous, even to people and things that cannot appreciate it. I’m torn on this.
Gentle reader: Technically, you need not offer courtesies to inanimate objects, even ones that simulate being your helpmate. The trouble is with the manners of those who no longer distinguish between them and human beings.
There is a difference. And if people would address one another respectfully, there might be even more of a difference.
Miss Manners respectfully requests that those in a position to influence the instructions issued with technology require that commands be issued politely.