Show good taste today BY EMILY POST author of ETIQUETTE TIIE THE BLUE BOOK OF SOCIAL USAGE 7 ETC BLIND DATES FAR mrs post will you tell roe me DRAI whether hether I 1 was prudish in my point of view and whether you think I 1 nm din just missing a lot of good times timea which could otherwise be mine this is what happened A short while ago before college reopened my college roommate was going out with her boy friend to an evening cabaret we both live in chicago ner her mother did not want her to go to a 8 late dance with the boy alone so she asked ms me to go alt with then them and they had a blind late date tor for me with a friend of his ue he was not especially interesting and only a fair dancer but we had a pleasant evening I 1 care if I 1 never saw him again but then too I 1 would just as soon go out with him again if there was no one else who nho offered A few evenings ago this boy called up and said lie le had a friend from st paul a young business man who was the finest kind of man and coming coining to chicago for two days and that he had made a blind date for me with the st SL paul man to take me out tor for dinner and go to dance afterwards lie he himself go out with us because lie he Is on the football squad lie ile said the st paul man would call for me at seven and that I 1 would have a wonderful time I 1 dont know why I 1 behaved as I 1 did I 1 could not help it it I 1 told him that having my time engaged for me to go 0 out t with a total stranger was not my idea of a wonderful time and that nothing would induce me to make that kind of a blind date and that thata I 1 was not a tax basl dancer and then I 1 hung up now kow of course everything Is all 1111 wrong we are back in college my roommate will hardly speak to me because her boy friend Is angry because I 1 was rude to his friend finally my roommate said she would leave it to you to decide who was right and who was wrong An answer it seems to me that you were right it was entirely proper to go out with your roommate and her friend and whoever they might have invited to make a fourth cut but to have gone out with the st paul man as coolly arranged for you ty by a practical stranger or in fact to go out alone with any man you did not know unless under very extenuating circumstances would have been extremely cl cheap desp at the same time you may have been rude in the way you refused to be a taxi dancer this depends on whether your voice was amiably casual or angry so you see NAMES PAR mrs post I 1 was named for diny DEAR my father who died when I 1 was ery cry young for more than twenty tue five years I 1 have continued to use john smith jr as my name I 1 know that I 1 am john smith and should write my name without junior suffixed to it put cut my father achieved some prominence and I 1 hesitate to take tits his name even now please write your opinion of my case answer I 1 think you yourself have given the only opinion there Is to give actually you are now john smith but I 1 have no idea whether the laws of your own state would compel you to sign you r name or engrave your visiting cards or even to change your bank signature I 1 do happen to know of a number of men who for one reason or another continued to call themselves junior long after the death of their fathers I 1 also know of others who during their fathers lives have taken oil off the nanie name junior by adding middle names apparently a man considers his name is his own to do with as lie he likes but whether he be has the legal right to make these changes I 1 dont know dear sirs mrs pot post should an dunmar led aed woman register in a hotel as carol jones or miss misa carol jones it if miss Is included Is it written as an undivided part of her name answer she writes miss carol jones exactly as in addressing an envelope she puts miss in parenthesis in front of her signature at the end of a letter to a stranger who does not know whether she js Is miss or sirs mrs or in your particular case mr all 0 my dear mrs post what should the young children at our school be taught to call a handy man whose duties also include driving the bui bua which brings them to and takes then them from school every day rie he is not a young no ung man and we dont want them to aae be disrespectful to him and yet dont know whether we should expect the children to say mr jones or not answer I 1 think it depends upon what you call him if he is silas to ou the chances are arc the children will call him silas too you can call of course make a point of it and tell them that it Is polite to call him mr because of his ago age 0 by emily post service |