Before you declare old-fashioned table manners extinct, consider the pause before dinner: Pew Research Center’s 2023–24 study found that 33% of U.S. adults always or often said grace or prayed before meals. That’s a substantial audience for a custom sometimes filed away with the family silver. The table’s story is more interesting than a simple march from proper to casual.
Emily Post’s 1955 instructions and her Institute’s 2023 family guidance offer another useful distinction: etiquette books record recommendations, not household attendance sheets. They can’t prove every boomer followed these rules, or that younger diners abandoned them. They can, however, offer a revealing look at the small rituals surrounding a shared meal.
Keep Elbows Off While Eating
The elbow rule comes with an important second half. Post’s 1955 advice kept elbows off during eating but allowed exceptions for conversation, including leaning closer in a noisy restaurant.
The Institute’s current guidance likewise permits elbows between courses or after the meal. So rest your arms while eating, then relax into the conversation; even the historical instructions left room for that.
Keep Your Napkin in Your Lap
Your napkin has a job, and decorating the table isn’t the whole assignment. Post’s 1955 text wanted it to stay in your lap, even suggesting clips for one that repeatedly slipped.
The Institute still recommends lap placement, while its 2023 family guide explicitly accepts paper napkins or paper towels. Take the practical idea with you: considerate dining doesn’t require a linen cupboard. emilypost.substack.com
Wait Until Everyone Is Ready
Let the meal find its shared starting point. Waiting until everyone is ready remains in the Institute’s 2023 family guide, and its children’s advice allows an earlier start when permission is given.
That leaves room for a host to tell someone to begin without declaring the whole custom obsolete. Listen for the invitation to start, rather than turning the first forkful into a race.
Ask to Be Excused
The end of dinner can have its own little courtesy. Asking to leave remains part of the Institute’s 2023 guidance for children, so parents are still encouraged to teach it.
That scope matters: this isn’t an instruction that every adult must request permission to stand up. For families using the rule, keep the reminder warm and the expectations clear.
Related: 9 Things Polite People Never Do at the Dinner Table
Finish Chewing Before Speaking
A good story can wait for a mouthful. The Institute’s 2023 family guidance includes avoiding speech with food in your mouth, and its current tips suggest a small hand gesture when someone asks a question just after you take a bite.
Finish chewing, swallow, then give the question your attention. Apply the advice with consideration for individual needs; dinner shouldn’t become a test of someone’s character.
Give Gravy and Condiments Their Places
Even gravy had an assigned address. In Post’s 1955 instructions, it went over the meat; condiments, pickles, and jelly belonged beside their accompanying food.
This is a wonderfully specific glimpse into her formal-dining guidance, although it tells us nothing about how faithfully ordinary households arranged their plates. Enjoy it as culinary history; your next dinner needn’t turn into an inspection of everyone’s plate.
Know the Open Saltcellar Rules
Salt came with surprisingly fine distinctions in Post’s 1955 text. A shared saltcellar without a spoon called for a clean knife tip; an individual one allowed fingers or a knife.
Salt on the tablecloth could be acceptable, but celery and radishes were to be dipped into salt on a plate. If the old rules sounded relentlessly rigid, this detail adds a welcome wrinkle: the exact situation mattered.
Keep Utensils on a Plate Passed for Seconds
Another helping had its own choreography. Post’s 1955 instruction was to leave the knife and fork on the plate, with their handles sufficiently inside the rim to prevent a tumble.
The advice applies to passing your plate for seconds, a specific way of serving a meal. Treat it as a practical instruction for that situation, without assuming every family once passed plates or that everyone has stopped.
Decline Without a Performance
A quiet refusal had a place in the older rulebook. Post’s 1955 passage allowed a subdued “No, thank you” or small head movement when declining waiter service, while her 1922 text had discouraged repeatedly refusing courses at formal dinners.
Those editions don’t support the sweeping claim that old etiquette required eating everything. Keep the useful part: a gracious refusal can be brief, and nobody needs a dramatic verdict on the dish.
Pause for Grace
This custom still has a measurable presence. Pew’s 2023–24 Religious Landscape Study found 33% of U.S. adults said grace always or often, 18% sometimes, and 48% seldom or never.
Pew cautions that many religious-practice questions lack valid comparisons over time, so broader prayer trends cannot establish a decline in this particular ritual. Recognize the practice where it belongs without treating it as a universal dining requirement.
From Post’s 1955 pages to the Institute’s 2023 family advice, take what helps you share a meal graciously and leave room for the people gathered around it.
