Miss Manners' Guide to Contagious Etiquette

By Judith Martin, Nicolas Martin and Jacobina Martin

From how to connect when we’re physically distant to the most effective way to advocate for better public health practices in your community (hint: it is not by yelling at jogging neighbors), Miss Manners guides readers through the unprecedented circumstances of the current global pandemic with humanity and wit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781524864996

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Miss Manners’ Guide to Contagious Etiquette ® copyright © 2020 by Judith Martin. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

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Miss Manners’ Guide

to Contagious Etiquette

Of what purpose or relevance is etiquette in a time of social distancing?

Because etiquette is a social code of behavior, Miss Manners has always promised not to annoy you with rules when you are home alone. And now so many of us are.

Still, the importance of considerate behavior ought to be obvious for those who are not literally alone, but sequestered with others. The old argument for just being able to be myself at home, which always turned out to mean indulging in doses of slovenliness and selfishness, always led to no good.

Even truly solitary confinement—with the exception of being able to connect through the blessings of electronics—benefits from retaining some of the basics of civilized life. Prisoners in the Civil War pleaded for spoons, so that they wouldn’t feel like animals eating with their hands. Anyone who has been bedridden knows that the simple routines of getting dressed and sitting at a table for meals have a stabilizing effect.

Obviously it is the heroic moral virtues that we most prize in times of crisis. But there are underlying principles that manners share with morality, and the small virtues that arise from concern for others are crucial in close quarters.

Miss Manners has long suffered from the popular misconception of etiquette as pertaining only to society in the sense of the rich and frivolous, and the illusion that normal people behave naturally. There is nothing like social distancing to serve as a reminder that society means all of us, and that behaving like our better selves benefits everyone.

• • •

DEAR MISS MANNERS—I have an older sister who continues to go out to socialize and posts photos of herself with friends on social media, despite the current need for everyone to stay home who can. These are not outings to get needed supplies nor to go to an essential job.

I tried to gently mention how we should not be going out at all if it can be helped, and she insisted it was only to see a few people, so she was fine. I am worried not only for her own safety, as she is of mature years, but also for that of her 13-year-old daughter who has had a history of pneumonia, her friends who are her seniors, and society at large.

She lives where there is a great population of senior citizens, and also where there have been less stringent preventative orders than elsewhere. How does one press such a dire subject for everyone’s safety to someone who isn’t