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American Morning
50th Anniversary Edition of Amy Vanderbilt's "Complete Book of Etiquette" is Out
Aired February 20, 2002 - 08:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: All right, listen up, boys and girls, time to mind your P's and Q's. The 50th anniversary updated edition of Amy Vanderbilt's "Complete Book of Etiquette" is out. Etiquette is important as it ever was. Those of us who live here in New York City are ever aware of that fact. There are new social issues that must be addressed and old ones that are still being ignored or abused that need to be paid attention to.
Etiquette expert Letitia Baldridge joins us now from Washington, D.C. She has updated the book herself, once in 1978, and she's back to talk about some of the new issues out there that require our attention when it comes to etiquette.
Ms. Baldridge, nice to have you with us.
LETITIA BALDRIDGE, ETIQUETTE DIVA: Great to be with you. Very polite, Jack.
CAFFERTY: And I did pretty good so far, right, I said Ms. Baldridge, that's proper etiquette when you want (ph) to speak to someone, no (ph)?
BALDRIDGE: I am Ms. Baldridge, that's right. That's good. That's fine.
CAFFERTY: Can I call you Letitia?
BALDRIDGE: Definitely call me Letitia.
CAFFERTY: Cool.
BALDRIDGE: And you know everybody talks about etiquette, but I talk about manners. Do you know the difference between etiquette and manners?
CAFFERTY: I'm about to learn it. What is it?
BALDRIDGE: All right, you're about to learn it, etiquette is the frosting on the cake. It's the formalities; it's how you hold your fork and knife. Manners is how you treat everybody else at the dinner party, how you treat everybody you are meeting and talking to during the day, whether you're kind or nasty. And you know road rage is one thing, but just being nice to your fellow human beings in the office...
CAFFERTY: Sure.
BALDRIDGE: ... or in the home is really terrific. And of course...
CAFFERTY: Let me ask you about -- I've got two or three specific things I want to address just because they bug me, OK? One of them is cell phones. Is it appropriate to use those, for example, in a restaurant, because it's aggravating, at least --.if I'm having dinner, I don't want to hear somebody talking on a cell phone but maybe it's OK. Where do you come down on cell phones and when it's appropriate to use them and when it isn't?
BALDRIDGE: Cell phones are appropriate to use if you're expecting a baby, if you're a husband expecting a baby, if you're on your way to the hospital. I mean cell phones are great for emergencies, but they are not to be used to upset everybody else in public. I mean they -- people use them in funerals, in the middle of weddings. It is something that we should learn how to be private about. It's a great invention.
CAFFERTY: All right.
BALDRIDGE: Great invention.
CAFFERTY: What about -- what about thank you notes and the advent of the computer and e-mails? Time was, and you worked for -- you worked for Jacqueline Kennedy before she was...
BALDRIDGE: That's right.
CAFFERTY: ... Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. You were her chief of staff when she was in the White House.
BALDRIDGE: That's right (ph).
CAFFERTY: Time was if you got a -- if you got a gift, you wrote a nice little thank you note by hand and you put it in the mail. Now we have computers,...
BALDRIDGE: That's right.
CAFFERTY: ... we have e-mail, is it appropriate? Can you use e- mail to deliver a thank you note or no?
BALDRIDGE: Listen people are not saying thank you in any way or form. If you get it out in e-mail, fine. But if it's something, somebody cooked you a dinner at home and gone to a lot of problems and trouble, you should write them a letter and say that was great and mention the food. And e-mail is fine for just saying thanks. If we only understood the nuances of the occasion and when to really make an effort to say thank you, but alas, most people in America now are just not saying thank you at all.
CAFFERTY: OK. What about invitations and when it says at the bottom RSVP? One of the -- one of the executives on this program said it's her pet peeve that nobody RSVPs anymore.
BALDRIDGE: That's very true, and it's very tough when you're the mother and father of the bride and you're paying $300 a head for wedding guests and people don't RSVP. Not only that, they come without having RSVP'd. And if they've accepted a party, they come -- they don't come and they don't call to say they're not coming or they'll simply arrive with a friend or two. I know many people who have given dinners and they've had a single woman and they've spent hours trying to find a man to match up with a single woman. They get a man, he accepts the dinner and he arrives with a date. This shows that we simply are not...
CAFFERTY: Yes, this doesn't work, right?
BALDRIDGE: ... paying attention. We just don't really care or we don't know. Mom and pop have not taught us all these things. So leadership really rises to the -- the cream rises to the top. Anybody who is kind to anybody else and considerate that's what manners are.
CAFFERTY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
BALDRIDGE: Forget how you hold your fork and knife, that's fine,...
CAFFERTY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
BALDRIDGE: ... but it's better to be kind.
CAFFERTY: Letitia, I've enjoyed this. I hope you have.
BALDRIDGE: Oh, I've enjoyed it too. I love to talk about manners. We are an unmannerly world right now,...
CAFFERTY: Well (ph),...
BALDRIDGE: ... but we've got a lot of other things going for us.
CAFFERTY: We do. It's a busy time.
Letitia Baldridge knows as much as anyone about the subject. I appreciate you joining us on AMERICAN MORNING.
BALDRIDGE: Thanks for having me.
CAFFERTY: All right.
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