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Emily Post: Ettiquette Queen · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
0:13
Speaker 2: and Jerry's here, too, keeping us proper. And this is
0:17
Speaker 2: Stuff You Should Know, the Sit Up Straight edition.
0:21
Speaker 1: I got to say, after researching this, I am a
0:25
Speaker 1: big fan of Emily Post.
0:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a surprisingly cool person, especially... for somebody who
0:32
Speaker 2: literally wrote a book on etiquette. Yeah.
0:35
Speaker 1: I didn't know much about any of this. And now
0:37
Speaker 1: I'm like, I want to know about her number one fan.
0:40
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's one person on planet earth that likes
0:42
Speaker 1: her more than me. Sure.
0:43
Speaker 2: Maybe number two, we'll say three. All right. But yeah,
0:47
Speaker 2: still a big fan. Are you going to buy the book,
0:49
Speaker 2: the blue book?
0:51
Speaker 1: Uh, I mean, I probably should. I'm sure it goes
0:53
Speaker 1: to something like her foundation or I want to support
0:57
Speaker 1: her financially still years after her passing.
1:00
Speaker 2: That'll do it. Um, I know that I read some
1:03
Speaker 2: think pieces on people who went and read that book
1:06
Speaker 2: and were like lessons I learned from reading this book.
1:10
Speaker 2: And it's pretty much roundly described as lovely, charming.
1:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:15
Speaker 2: And also useful still, because one of the things that
1:17
Speaker 2: set her apart is because of the way she approached
1:21
Speaker 2: etiquette and rules of etiquette and how to, you know,
1:24
Speaker 2: learn social graces. The, the, It was like a progressive
1:30
Speaker 2: way of doing it. So she was able to basically say,
1:32
Speaker 2: this is what's really important. So a lot of the
1:34
Speaker 2: stuff that she talks about is completely applicable today.
1:40
Speaker 1: Some might say more so.
1:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. More needed for sure. Yeah.
1:45
Speaker 1: So, I mean, they had etiquette guides for sure. It's
1:48
Speaker 1: not like she, even though, you know, you might commonly
1:51
Speaker 1: hear people say she literally wrote the book on etiquette.
1:54
Speaker 1: She did. But she wrote one of the many books
1:57
Speaker 1: on etiquette. Hers was a little bit different than the
2:01
Speaker 1: others in a lot of ways that we're going to
2:02
Speaker 1: talk about kind of here and there. But one of
2:04
Speaker 1: the big ways is she was all about ethics. And
2:07
Speaker 1: as we'll see, you know, we're going to detail her life.
2:10
Speaker 1: She was born into money, but she was basically like, hey, listen,
2:13
Speaker 1: just because you have money doesn't mean that you are respectable.
2:18
Speaker 1: You have to have a grounding in ethics. No matter
2:20
Speaker 1: who you are and if you don't have money and
2:24
Speaker 1: if you're, you know, not born into like a great
2:27
Speaker 1: family or something, then that doesn't mean you can't be
2:30
Speaker 1: a part of what she called good society. You just
2:32
Speaker 1: have to know like you have to be grounded in
2:34
Speaker 1: ethics and how to know like how to keep a
2:37
Speaker 1: clean house and how to behave with manners.
2:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is kind of groundbreaking because up to that point,
2:43
Speaker 2: most etiquette books were basically like, this is what the
2:45
Speaker 2: ultra rich expect of you if you're in their presence.
2:48
Speaker 2: And if you don't do this, you're going to embarrass yourself.
2:50
Speaker 2: So memorize all of these. And she definitely turned it
2:53
Speaker 2: on its head, which, as you said, her being a
2:56
Speaker 2: society or socialite, I guess, herself was really something. She
3:01
Speaker 2: had like the background to basically say, no, there's a
3:04
Speaker 2: better way to do this. Not coming from the outside.
3:07
Speaker 2: She was on the inside and that helped.
3:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also like she wasn't so stodgy that she
3:13
Speaker 1: didn't embrace change when it was like kind of clearly happening.
3:16
Speaker 1: And as we'll see, you know, this book she started
3:19
Speaker 1: to write and came out during the Roaring Twenties. So
3:21
Speaker 1: it was a lot of people, including her sons, thought
3:24
Speaker 1: like this probably isn't the right time for this kind
3:26
Speaker 1: of thing. Like that kind of stuff is old fashioned.
3:29
Speaker 1: And she just said, just hold my tea and I'll
3:31
Speaker 1: take care of this.
3:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the U.S. in particular has long had a
3:36
Speaker 2: preoccupation with etiquette for a big reason. One is we
3:41
Speaker 2: established our country as a society of equals. There's not
3:44
Speaker 2: an aristocracy, which is where people receive their etiquette from, say,
3:49
Speaker 2: in like England or the U.K. You just did what
3:51
Speaker 2: the aristocrats did or, you know, that was your etiquette.
3:55
Speaker 2: We don't have an aristocracy here. So it was like
3:58
Speaker 2: the wealthy. And like I said, up to that point,
4:01
Speaker 2: Up to the point of Emily Post, the wealthy were
4:03
Speaker 2: just like, or etiquette books were like, here's what the
4:05
Speaker 2: wealthy tell you to do. The problem is, is there
4:08
Speaker 2: are a lot of people in the middle class who
4:09
Speaker 2: were kind of working their way up because in the
4:11
Speaker 2: United States, wealth equals aristocracy, not being born with a title.
4:16
Speaker 2: And those people resented the heck out of the upper
4:20
Speaker 2: classes who were just ready and waiting to embarrass them
4:23
Speaker 2: when they slipped up. And so Emily Post came and
4:26
Speaker 2: was like, hey, like you said, you don't have to
4:29
Speaker 2: be born wealthy. You don't have to. Your ancestors didn't
4:31
Speaker 2: have to come on the Mayflower. Anybody can learn etiquette
4:35
Speaker 2: and everybody should practice good etiquette. And that was, again, revolutionary.
4:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So she was born into a rich family.
4:44
Speaker 1: Like I said, her dad, Bruce Price, she was born
4:47
Speaker 1: Emily Price in October of 1872. But her dad was
4:50
Speaker 1: a pretty prominent architect in Baltimore. Her mom, Josephine Lee Price,
4:56
Speaker 1: was an heiress to a coal fortune. And she was
4:59
Speaker 1: basically an only child. She very sadly had a brother
5:03
Speaker 1: who died in infancy. So she was raised an only child.
5:06
Speaker 1: And at five, they moved to New York City. And
5:09
Speaker 1: they were a part of the good society there because
5:11
Speaker 1: they had money. They were not part of that of
5:13
Speaker 1: what was called the 400, which was the super elite
5:17
Speaker 1: upper crust that, you know, a lot of them had
5:19
Speaker 1: aristocratic lineage. But She was in New York and like
5:24
Speaker 1: going to finishing school, that kind of thing.
5:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you mentioned the 400. I read that that
5:29
Speaker 2: was a way for this elite upper class of old
5:34
Speaker 2: money and old lineage to differentiate themselves from the newly
5:38
Speaker 2: minted wealthy people who were starting to rub elbows with them.
5:42
Speaker 2: That list was one way to do it. Another way
5:44
Speaker 2: to do it was to found a little village called
5:47
Speaker 2: Tuxedo Park, a little north of New York City. And
5:51
Speaker 2: it was created as like an enclave, an escape for
5:54
Speaker 2: the incredibly wealthy old money to get away from new money.
5:59
Speaker 2: And I want to preface this, Chuck, by telling everybody
6:02
Speaker 2: I'm not making this up, but Tuxedo Park in New
6:05
Speaker 2: York is where the tuxedo came from, aka the dinner jacket.
6:10
Speaker 1: That's right. And her dad in 1885 built four cottages there. And,
6:17
Speaker 1: you know, cottage is a It's a loose description. These
6:21
Speaker 1: are very lovely, very large homes that he built. I
6:25
Speaker 1: looked them up and I was expecting, you know, what
6:27
Speaker 1: I think of as a cottage.
6:28
Speaker 2: Right.
6:29
Speaker 1: Same. Which is something like 1,200 square feet. These are big,
6:32
Speaker 1: beautiful houses. Tuxedo Park looks amazing. I would love to
6:36
Speaker 1: visit there one day, in fact. But he built four
6:39
Speaker 1: of these, rented out three of them, used one for
6:42
Speaker 1: the family, and, you know, Everyone started like going there
6:48
Speaker 1: in the summers and some people started living there year round.
6:51
Speaker 1: And the Prices were one of those families. Yeah.
6:55
Speaker 2: And Emily was just doing basically everything that was expected
6:59
Speaker 2: of her. Like you said, she went to finishing school
7:01
Speaker 2: and at age 17, she premiered at a debutante ball.
7:06
Speaker 2: I think this is 1889. Following the script perfectly, she
7:10
Speaker 2: met her future husband at that debutante ball. His name
7:13
Speaker 2: was Edwin Post, and he didn't come from a ton
7:15
Speaker 2: of money, but he could trace his lineage back pretty
7:18
Speaker 2: far to old New Amsterdam. So he had that going
7:21
Speaker 2: for him. And Emily brought the money to the marriage.
7:24
Speaker 2: This is apparently not unusual at the time. And they
7:27
Speaker 2: just went ahead and had two sons, Ned and Bruce.
7:31
Speaker 2: I guess Bruce the Two, the Deuce. Bruce the Deuce.
7:34
Speaker 2: They got there eventually.
7:36
Speaker 1: Would they call him? How do you handle that if
7:39
Speaker 1: you're just named after a grandparent?
7:41
Speaker 2: I think they differentiated him by calling him Bruce Lee Post.
7:45
Speaker 1: Oh, is that it?
7:48
Speaker 2: I don't know. Different last name. Little Bruce, Old Bruce,
7:50
Speaker 2: Wrinkly Bruce, Chubby Bruce. Who knows?
7:54
Speaker 1: I didn't know if there was an official way you
7:57
Speaker 1: honor someone besides just the name.
7:58
Speaker 2: I think it's the second. Is it really?
8:01
Speaker 1: I thought that was just if you're named after your parent.
8:03
Speaker 2: That's Junior.
8:04
Speaker 1: Junior. Oh, okay. So it's the second, huh?
8:07
Speaker 2: I believe so. I'm making this up as I go along,
8:09
Speaker 2: but it's based on 50 years of paying attention on Earth.
8:13
Speaker 1: I got you. So that's my problem.
8:16
Speaker 2: What?
8:17
Speaker 1: Don't pay attention.
8:18
Speaker 2: That is not true.
8:19
Speaker 1: I probably would have picked this up.
8:20
Speaker 2: You just pay attention to stuff that's important to you.
8:24
Speaker 1: So, yeah, Ned was born in 1893, and Bruce II,
8:29
Speaker 1: Deuce Bruce, Bruce the Deuce, was born in 1895.
8:30
Speaker 2: Very.
8:34
Speaker 1: disappointedly, I guess she didn't have a very good marriage. Uh,
8:37
Speaker 1: Edwin doesn't seem like a very good dude. He was
8:40
Speaker 1: into sailing. Uh, she was prone to seasickness. So they
8:43
Speaker 1: didn't spend a lot of time together, like with shared passions. Uh,
8:47
Speaker 1: at one point he said that he had committed matrimony
8:50
Speaker 1: and was sentenced to life, uh, for it. So not
8:54
Speaker 1: cool to say something like that. Uh, and when her
8:57
Speaker 1: dad died, she was, she was a daddy's girl for sure.
8:59
Speaker 1: Very close to her father when he died in 1903
9:01
Speaker 1: on his deathbed. Apparently, she had a flair for writing,
9:06
Speaker 1: and he said, you should go write. Do that. That's
9:08
Speaker 1: what you're passionate about. And over the next year, after
9:12
Speaker 1: he passed away, she wrote and published her first novel,
9:16
Speaker 1: The Flight of the Moth.
9:18
Speaker 2: Yes. It's like a society novel about a woman who
9:22
Speaker 2: falls in love with a man who's already engaged. And
9:25
Speaker 2: this is actually one of six novels that she wrote,
9:28
Speaker 2: some of which were really popular. I only saw that
9:30
Speaker 2: one was poorly reviewed. One was mixed reviewed and the
9:33
Speaker 2: other four were pretty well received. So she was a
9:36
Speaker 2: good writer, a fiction writer. And that's what she wanted
9:39
Speaker 2: to be. Unfortunately, as her career's taking off, her marriage
9:44
Speaker 2: is deteriorating. Edwin's love of his ship or boating and
9:51
Speaker 2: her seasickness is not their only incompatibility. One of the
9:54
Speaker 2: big ones I think you could probably point to was
9:56
Speaker 2: him cheating on her all the time. Yeah. And he
10:00
Speaker 2: was the kind who I think didn't make too much
10:04
Speaker 2: of a secret of it. I don't think he talked
10:07
Speaker 2: about it openly because it's not clear whether she had
10:09
Speaker 2: full knowledge of it before he finally told her. But
10:13
Speaker 2: the reason he finally told her is because he was
10:15
Speaker 2: being blackmailed. And rather than submit to this blackmailing scheme
10:19
Speaker 2: that had been going on for a while, he decided
10:21
Speaker 2: he was going to be the hero of their circle
10:24
Speaker 2: of friends, I guess most of whom had been blackmailed
10:27
Speaker 2: as well, and expose the blackmailers. The problem is, is
10:31
Speaker 2: like this brought tremendous amounts of shame onto their marriage
10:36
Speaker 2: and onto Emily in particular. Yeah.
10:39
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess hell hath no fury like a
10:43
Speaker 1: man being blackmailed. because he was willing to throw it
10:46
Speaker 1: all away and embarrass, I guess he didn't feel too
10:51
Speaker 1: much embarrassment, but definitely embarrass Emily with all this stuff.
10:55
Speaker 1: Later on, she would basically say that they agreed that
10:59
Speaker 1: they would expose the blackmailers as a sort of a team.
11:03
Speaker 1: But according to her biographer, Laura Claridge, that was just
11:08
Speaker 1: something she said to sort of make it look better.
11:10
Speaker 1: Like she had some agency because apparently He just said, hey,
11:13
Speaker 1: I'm doing this and that's going to happen.
11:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was basically like, heads up, your life's about
11:18
Speaker 2: to get really terrible. I just wanted to let you
11:20
Speaker 2: know the day before it happens. Essentially, he protected her
11:23
Speaker 2: in no way, shape or form on top of humiliating her.
11:26
Speaker 2: So they got divorced the next year and she moved
11:30
Speaker 2: on with the kids. I didn't get the impression that
11:33
Speaker 2: she shed too many tears over it, which is good.
11:35
Speaker 2: I mean, a guy who says he committed matrimony is
11:38
Speaker 2: not exactly a catch, you know?
11:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed.
11:41
Speaker 2: So how about we take a break and we'll rejoin
11:44
Speaker 2: newly single Happening Lady Emily Post.
11:49
Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay, Chuck.
12:19
Speaker 2: So Emily has a lot more free time on her hands,
12:23
Speaker 2: not having to keep tabs on her gallivanting husband because
12:26
Speaker 2: she's now divorced. So she threw herself into a book,
12:30
Speaker 2: another novel, Purple and Fine Linen. Could not find anything
12:34
Speaker 2: about what that was about. That had some positive reviews.
12:38
Speaker 2: Two years later, she came out with Woven in the
12:40
Speaker 2: Tapestry that did not impress viewers. That was the one
12:43
Speaker 2: I was talking about that didn't get very well reviewed.
12:46
Speaker 2: And then shortly after that, she released another one, The
12:49
Speaker 2: Title Market, which was about European titled people marrying American
12:54
Speaker 2: wealthy people. And all of these are like people are
12:57
Speaker 2: fascinated by this, just like they are today. It's like.
13:00
Speaker 2: inside scoops of how society lives. But one of the
13:05
Speaker 2: things that I think gets overlooked about Emily Post, she
13:08
Speaker 2: was not just dishing gossip. She was not being salacious.
13:11
Speaker 2: She was providing a very clear picture into society without
13:18
Speaker 2: going all Truman Capote and making everybody hate her.
13:21
Speaker 1: For sure. So while she's doing this, putting out novel
13:25
Speaker 1: after novel, she's also writing articles in various periodicals. She
13:30
Speaker 1: wrote one for the delineator called What Makes a Young
13:33
Speaker 1: Girl Popular in Society. So at this point, she's she's
13:37
Speaker 1: sort of edging toward what she would eventually get, like,
13:40
Speaker 1: you know, widespread acclaim for kind of writing about some
13:43
Speaker 1: of this stuff, a little bit of society, a little
13:46
Speaker 1: bit of ethics. She published another novel in 1911 called
13:50
Speaker 1: The Eagle's Feather, kind of mixed reviews on that one.
13:54
Speaker 1: And then she starts writing articles on like, hey, if
13:56
Speaker 1: you're going to have a baby, here's how you should
13:58
Speaker 1: plan for expenses. She wrote about Tuxedo Park. So, again,
14:03
Speaker 1: she's just sort of inching toward what would be her,
14:06
Speaker 1: you know, her big tome.
14:08
Speaker 2: I'm talking about having a baby reminds me of, I guess,
14:11
Speaker 2: a tweet or something I saw recently. It said, how
14:15
Speaker 2: does somebody look at a baby and think I'm going
14:17
Speaker 2: to name that kid Gary?
14:19
Speaker 1: Oh, poor Gary's.
14:21
Speaker 2: I know. But it is true that it's not a
14:23
Speaker 2: baby's name. You know what I mean? Yeah.
14:26
Speaker 1: It's also a name you don't hear a lot anymore
14:29
Speaker 1: for new names.
14:30
Speaker 2: True. But it's also a middle-aged man's name, very clearly.
14:34
Speaker 2: But that middle-aged man had to be a baby at
14:37
Speaker 2: one point.
14:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
14:39
Speaker 2: So- There's something that's going on here. Just like she
14:42
Speaker 2: basically told everybody that she and Edwin had kind of
14:47
Speaker 2: collaborated to come up with the way to expose these blackmailers.
14:52
Speaker 2: She also told people that she was kind of pushed
14:54
Speaker 2: into becoming an etiquette writer, an advice columnist, basically. Again,
15:01
Speaker 2: Laura Claridge has basically dug up that. No, she was
15:04
Speaker 2: basically going after it. And even her agent was like,
15:07
Speaker 2: you don't want to do that. It's going to bore you.
15:08
Speaker 2: It's beneath you. And she still kept at it until
15:11
Speaker 2: she got a project in. Oh, I don't know. I
15:15
Speaker 2: think it was the lady's home journal. She finally got
15:18
Speaker 2: one or no, it was Collier's, I think one of
15:20
Speaker 2: the two.
15:21
Speaker 1: Yes, she she went on a road trip, actually. She
15:24
Speaker 1: wrote another book that was serialized, but not picked up
15:27
Speaker 1: for publishing in book form. So she was like, all right,
15:30
Speaker 1: I need to clear my head. My sons are adults
15:34
Speaker 1: and they're going on a road trip in Europe. They
15:37
Speaker 1: apparently were all super close because it wasn't a drag
15:40
Speaker 1: for mom to come along. And then not only that,
15:43
Speaker 1: after that road trip, Ned was like, hey, I'm going
15:46
Speaker 1: to keep going. They built this new Lincoln Highway. I'm
15:47
Speaker 1: going to do a cross country trip across across the
15:50
Speaker 1: United States. And mom, I can't think of anyone I'd
15:53
Speaker 1: rather have along with me. So she goes on this
15:56
Speaker 1: 45 day trip across country. And that's where Collier is.
15:59
Speaker 1: was like, hey, why don't you write about your road
16:02
Speaker 1: trip or whatever? She wrote these articles, compiled into a
16:06
Speaker 1: book later called By Motor to the Golden Gate. But
16:09
Speaker 1: that didn't do so well either.
16:12
Speaker 2: No, I read that on that road trip, they had
16:14
Speaker 2: to ship the heavy silver picnic set that they had
16:17
Speaker 2: brought with them back east because it was weighing the
16:20
Speaker 2: car down too much.
16:22
Speaker 1: Amazing.
16:23
Speaker 2: So I misspoke earlier, Chuck. I said that she was–
16:26
Speaker 2: angling for like a monthly column or something on etiquette.
16:29
Speaker 2: She already had those, like you said, she had a
16:31
Speaker 2: couple of them. But rather than get like that monthly
16:34
Speaker 2: regular one that she wanted, she jumped over that and
16:37
Speaker 2: ended up with a book deal. The thing was, when
16:42
Speaker 2: she got this book deal, I think in 1920, to
16:45
Speaker 2: write a book on etiquette, between the time where she
16:48
Speaker 2: had been writing those columns and 1920, the world had
16:51
Speaker 2: changed drastically. Because World War I had killed so many
16:55
Speaker 2: people and the Spanish flu had killed so many people
16:58
Speaker 2: that the people who were left were like really happy
17:00
Speaker 2: to be alive. And the idea of following books of
17:03
Speaker 2: etiquette was not in the zeitgeist, which is why, like
17:06
Speaker 2: you said, her sons at the time were like, this
17:09
Speaker 2: doesn't seem like the right time for this kind of project.
17:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, but she was excited about it. She was like,
17:16
Speaker 1: all right, I'm going to bang this thing out. It'll
17:18
Speaker 1: be a short little book on etiquette with my own
17:20
Speaker 1: spin on it. meticulous researcher and organizer. She was never like, hey,
17:26
Speaker 1: I'm the expert on this thing. I know all of
17:30
Speaker 1: like everything about etiquette. So you got to listen to me.
17:32
Speaker 1: She was asking friends. She was asking random people on
17:35
Speaker 1: the street. She was taking polls like from the public
17:38
Speaker 1: on what they thought to, you know, she wanted to
17:40
Speaker 1: put out something really thorough and well-researched. And so, you know,
17:45
Speaker 1: we like her. And she ended up writing a 619
17:48
Speaker 1: page book called Etiquette, colon, in society and politics, in
17:58
Speaker 1: business and at home. And it was expensive. It would
18:01
Speaker 1: have been about $ 75 in today's money. And it was
18:05
Speaker 1: super long, but people loved it. It became really popular
18:09
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. And I think she reached the top of
18:11
Speaker 1: the Publishers Weekly nonfiction bestseller list about eight months after
18:16
Speaker 1: it came out.
18:17
Speaker 2: Yes. I think they renamed it at some point to
18:20
Speaker 2: the Blue Book of Social Usage, which I don't think
18:23
Speaker 2: is any better a title than the original one. And
18:27
Speaker 2: she wasn't the only one coming out with the Book
18:29
Speaker 2: of Etiquette at the time. But so Jane McGrath, who
18:33
Speaker 2: we used to work with, who is a great writer
18:35
Speaker 2: at How Stuff Works and just a great person all around.
18:38
Speaker 2: She wrote the article that we're basing this episode on.
18:42
Speaker 2: And she was clearly a fan. I don't know if
18:44
Speaker 2: you picked up on that, did you?
18:47
Speaker 1: I mean, it seemed like she was into the article.
18:49
Speaker 2: For sure. She uses a rival or a competitor who
18:53
Speaker 2: released a book around the same time, a woman named
18:56
Speaker 2: Lillian Eichler, who revised a book of etiquette that had
18:59
Speaker 2: already been out by Emily Holt. And the premise of
19:01
Speaker 2: this was learn this stuff or you'll be embarrassed in
19:04
Speaker 2: social events or whatever. And Emily Post was not like that,
19:11
Speaker 2: as we've said a few times, like, It was everybody
19:14
Speaker 2: should learn etiquette because it's a lot more than just
19:16
Speaker 2: how to use a dinner fork or what to, you know,
19:19
Speaker 2: how to greet somebody. Those are all very important. Those
19:22
Speaker 2: are part of etiquette. But that is not the basis
19:24
Speaker 2: of etiquette. And anybody who says that is wrong, wrong, wrong.
19:28
Speaker 2: I think that was the blurb on the dust jacket.
19:31
Speaker 1: So, you know, it's 619 pages. So there's a lot
19:35
Speaker 1: in it. But she talks about, you know, how to
19:38
Speaker 1: have a proper conversation with someone. Um, obviously all kinds
19:42
Speaker 1: of things about like invitation cards, thank you notes, how
19:46
Speaker 1: to keep up your house in a way that's presentable.
19:49
Speaker 1: You know, you when introducing people, younger people are introduced
19:53
Speaker 1: to older people. But if you're a gentleman, you are
19:56
Speaker 1: always presented to a lady first. Don't put on airs
20:00
Speaker 1: like I don't want to say mixed messages, but at
20:03
Speaker 1: times she was like, you know, don't put on airs
20:05
Speaker 1: with your vocabulary. But at other times she was like,
20:08
Speaker 1: but you shouldn't say this. You should probably say this.
20:13
Speaker 1: And it was just, you know, reflected like what she
20:16
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, what she called good society.
20:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. So good society or she says that best society.
20:22
Speaker 2: And this is her her whole philosophy in a nutshell.
20:25
Speaker 2: It's not a fellowship of the wealthy, nor does it
20:28
Speaker 2: seek to exclude those who are not of exalted birth.
20:31
Speaker 2: But it is an association of gentle folk, which is
20:34
Speaker 2: my new favorite word.
20:35
Speaker 1: I love it.
20:35
Speaker 2: Of which good form and speech, charm of manner, knowledge
20:39
Speaker 2: of the social amenities and instinctive consideration for the feelings
20:43
Speaker 2: of others are the credentials by which society the world
20:46
Speaker 2: over recognizes its chosen members. So to heck with being
20:51
Speaker 2: rich and automatically having manners, you know, and at the
20:54
Speaker 2: same time to heck with being poor and never being
20:56
Speaker 2: able to reach people. a station in good society. And
21:00
Speaker 2: this is just completely turning convention on its head. And
21:04
Speaker 2: this is why Emily Post is revered and loved still today,
21:08
Speaker 2: because that is the ethos that America, at the very least,
21:12
Speaker 2: was like, we're going to keep going with this. This
21:15
Speaker 2: is right up our alley.
21:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it was that like while she was writing about,
21:21
Speaker 1: you know, how a lady sits in a chair or
21:23
Speaker 1: when to take off your hat in an elevator if
21:26
Speaker 1: you're a gentleman. or how to host a tea or
21:28
Speaker 1: a wedding, but there's this undercurrent of here's how to
21:32
Speaker 1: be a good human. And I think that's why it
21:35
Speaker 1: really like jumped out to me, especially like these days
21:38
Speaker 1: when it just seems like all of this stuff is
21:41
Speaker 1: kind of decorum and all this. And I'm not, I mean,
21:44
Speaker 1: trust me, I'm no big etiquette guy or anything, but
21:48
Speaker 1: I just feel like there's been so much lost in
21:50
Speaker 1: just everyday sort of dealings with people that she, it
21:55
Speaker 1: seemed important to her.
21:57
Speaker 2: Well, I think it is. I think even people who
22:00
Speaker 2: are like the most triggering, like purposefully, if you got
22:04
Speaker 2: them on, you know, under the right circumstances and got
22:08
Speaker 2: them to just let their guard down and be normal,
22:10
Speaker 2: they would probably say like, yeah, I think I think,
22:13
Speaker 2: you know, like having good manners is important. Right. And
22:17
Speaker 2: I think the undercurrent of all of this, Chuck, is
22:20
Speaker 2: being courteous to others. That was like the basis of
22:22
Speaker 2: what she's saying. And that, I think, is what's lacking today.
22:26
Speaker 2: People are not courteous to other people or we're not
22:29
Speaker 2: courteous to one another like we were years ago. And
22:32
Speaker 2: I mean, 20 years ago, maybe. Yeah, I think it's
22:37
Speaker 2: just it's just courtesy and courteousness and just treating other
22:41
Speaker 2: people like they're a worthwhile human being as a default.
22:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Some of the stuff that she wrote about, obviously,
22:50
Speaker 1: you know, when she's writing about the various, you know,
22:53
Speaker 1: chambermaids and butlers and things like that, like most of
22:56
Speaker 1: that stuff, you can't really apply as much today, I guess,
23:00
Speaker 1: unless you're super wealthy and have a chambermaid. I don't
23:02
Speaker 1: even know if that's still a thing. But a lot
23:06
Speaker 1: of the stuff that she laid down is still like,
23:09
Speaker 1: you know, kind of rules around a wedding and stuff
23:11
Speaker 1: like that, like who pays for what, who like the bride.
23:14
Speaker 1: picks the bridesmaids' dresses and the bridesmaids pay for those.
23:19
Speaker 1: Like that stuff is kind of locked in for life.
23:22
Speaker 1: And it's not like she didn't make this stuff up.
23:24
Speaker 1: Like this is what was going on at the time,
23:25
Speaker 1: but she kind of codified it.
23:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. She also, one of the other things
23:29
Speaker 2: that she was remarkable in doing was creating characters. Because remember,
23:33
Speaker 2: she had a background in fiction and also a background
23:38
Speaker 2: in living among society as a member of it. So
23:41
Speaker 2: she put these together and she created these characters with–
23:44
Speaker 2: Funny names that really kind of got across what their
23:47
Speaker 2: purpose was in these narratives. The Worldlies, the Kindhearts, I
23:51
Speaker 2: love them. The Wellborns, the Guildings, the Toplofties.
23:57
Speaker 1: That's fun.
23:58
Speaker 2: There's another one, the Rich and Vulgars and the New
24:01
Speaker 2: Old Riches. each of these played like a different part
24:05
Speaker 2: and she could use them to say like this is
24:07
Speaker 2: what this this group of person this group of people
24:09
Speaker 2: would do and this is why you wouldn't do that
24:12
Speaker 2: um and so in these uh like with these characters
24:17
Speaker 2: i should say she creates narratives like mostly i think
24:21
Speaker 2: i was skimming it and i think every chapter had
24:24
Speaker 2: some sort of like narrative first and then she would
24:27
Speaker 2: break down different like the different components of that narrative
24:31
Speaker 2: like Dining or sending invitations or whatever to be a
24:35
Speaker 2: narrative and then the nuts and bolts of it.
24:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a fun way to do it. Like
24:39
Speaker 1: create a little hypothetical dinner party where some guy, you know,
24:46
Speaker 1: farts when the soup comes. I would say that's probably Mr. Toplofty.
24:53
Speaker 1: And then she can write about how that's not the
24:54
Speaker 1: thing to do. So it grabbed the reader's attention. I
24:57
Speaker 1: think it was way more fun than any etiquette book
25:00
Speaker 1: that had preceded it. And she also wrote some about
25:03
Speaker 1: like fashion. You know, she she was like, you should
25:06
Speaker 1: be like try to keep up with the latest fashions,
25:09
Speaker 1: but don't be sheep either and just follow it blindly.
25:13
Speaker 1: But she didn't like what she called frumps or dowds
25:15
Speaker 1: who like didn't make any attempts. So, you know, some
25:18
Speaker 1: of that stuff is is not really etiquette. I think
25:21
Speaker 1: she was just kind of throwing her own two cents
25:22
Speaker 1: in about modern society in a way.
25:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. OK, Chuck, let's take a break. When
25:27
Speaker 2: we come back, I really want to talk about my
25:29
Speaker 2: favorite part of the book, The New Ed's Disastrous Dinner Party.
25:34
Speaker 1: OK, great. We'll be right back. OK. All right. Let's
26:07
Speaker 1: hear about your favorite part.
26:08
Speaker 2: So did you see that little excerpt that I sent
26:10
Speaker 2: you about their disastrous dinner party?
26:14
Speaker 1: I did.
26:15
Speaker 2: Did it just did it make you laugh out loud
26:18
Speaker 2: at just how horrible this Mrs. Newwood felt?
26:23
Speaker 1: I thought it was funny, but LOLing, that's too specific
26:26
Speaker 1: of a ask for me.
26:27
Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough. I'll take that. But there was– so Mrs.
26:30
Speaker 2: Newwood throws this dinner party, and at the end, Emily
26:34
Speaker 2: Post explains what– all these different things go wrong. But
26:38
Speaker 2: what Emily Post explained at the end was that what
26:41
Speaker 2: really went wrong is that Mrs. Newwood took too big
26:43
Speaker 2: of a swing right out of the gate to mix
26:46
Speaker 2: my sports metaphors. And that she should have thrown a
26:49
Speaker 2: bunch of little dinner parties with people she was more
26:51
Speaker 2: comfortable with and throwing this really extravagant high end dinner
26:55
Speaker 2: party with the most important people in town. Right. So
26:59
Speaker 2: one of the things that happened was like the plates
27:02
Speaker 2: were collected in like a terrible manner. And so Mrs.
27:07
Speaker 2: Worldly is watching this with almost hypnotized fascination as her
27:11
Speaker 2: attention might be drawn to a street accident. against her will.
27:15
Speaker 2: So basically the way that the, the server took up
27:18
Speaker 2: the plates was equal to, uh, looking at a car
27:22
Speaker 2: accident and how you can't look away.
27:23
Speaker 1: It's pretty good.
27:25
Speaker 2: And it gets so bad that, uh, Mrs. Newwood, uh,
27:29
Speaker 2: she says, there's no use in apologizing. There's no way
27:31
Speaker 2: of dropping through the floor or waking yourself up. So
27:35
Speaker 2: essentially this goes really, really horribly. And, um, it doesn't,
27:39
Speaker 2: there's no resolution. Like Emily Post is like, yeah, that
27:42
Speaker 2: was a really horrible dinner party. Here's how to avoid
27:45
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. So that was, yeah, I love
27:48
Speaker 2: it too. It's such a great little narrative, but poor Mrs. Newwood,
27:51
Speaker 2: like really goes through the ringer. Yeah.
27:53
Speaker 1: And just a great example of why this stood out
27:55
Speaker 1: from the others. Like if you can make a book
27:58
Speaker 1: on etiquette, a fun read, like you've done your job,
28:00
Speaker 1: I think as an author.
28:03
Speaker 2: And as a human being, I think as a legend.
28:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. And, you know, she also kind of, I feel
28:07
Speaker 1: like would take, That seems like veiled pot shots at
28:11
Speaker 1: her ex-husband because she was writing about how like all
28:15
Speaker 1: about core values and how like she says at one point,
28:19
Speaker 1: like a man is not a gentleman if he doesn't
28:21
Speaker 1: live up to a code of honor. It's more important
28:23
Speaker 1: than any mere dictum of etiquette. Like I think she's
28:26
Speaker 1: definitely taking a veiled shot like, hey, just because you
28:30
Speaker 1: put on airs like you're this, you know, person that
28:33
Speaker 1: maybe came from, you know, Dutch nobility. Like you're not
28:37
Speaker 1: a real man. I doubt if you read this. Who
28:39
Speaker 1: knows if you read it? Probably not.
28:42
Speaker 2: Surely one of his like chaps at the sports club
28:46
Speaker 2: or something was like, oh, did.
28:47
Speaker 1: You write this quote at the cricket grounds?
28:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. And yeah, ultimately, what she was saying was certainly
28:54
Speaker 2: this is a quote. Certainly what one is is a
28:56
Speaker 2: far greater importance than what one appears to be. So, yeah,
29:00
Speaker 2: you can learn all this stuff. And if you're a
29:02
Speaker 2: SOB or a POS or anything like that. It's not
29:06
Speaker 2: going to add up to a lot. People are going
29:08
Speaker 2: to see you eventually for what you are. And you're
29:11
Speaker 2: not going to get invited to dinner parties anymore until
29:14
Speaker 2: you clean up your act.
29:15
Speaker 1: That's right. If you're any set of letters, you're probably
29:17
Speaker 1: in trouble.
29:19
Speaker 2: Unless you're a BFF.
29:20
Speaker 1: That's right. So another kind of cool thing she did
29:24
Speaker 1: was kind of issue a charge to the upper class,
29:27
Speaker 1: which was like, hey, you got to like be cool,
29:30
Speaker 1: dudes and ladies. there are new people coming up the
29:34
Speaker 1: ranks with money. There are other people that don't have
29:37
Speaker 1: money and you need to be nicer to them and
29:40
Speaker 1: more understanding if they're not like living up to whatever
29:43
Speaker 1: standard that you've set. She's talking about in one part
29:46
Speaker 1: about how to be a good guest. And she says,
29:49
Speaker 1: you must learn as it were not to notice if
29:51
Speaker 1: hot soup is poured down your back. Like you have
29:54
Speaker 1: to ignore if you have a bad dinner guest and
29:57
Speaker 1: maybe they, you know, hand them a copy of this
29:59
Speaker 1: book and don't turn your nose up at them.
30:02
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. You can't look down on the lower classes
30:05
Speaker 2: just because they're lower classes or they're not doing this perfectly.
30:08
Speaker 2: And again, I think that was kind of one of
30:11
Speaker 2: the lessons from poor Mrs. New Wed's terrible dinner party,
30:16
Speaker 2: because in it, one of the one of the characters, Mr. Kindheart,
30:20
Speaker 2: leans over and says, cheer up, little girl. It doesn't
30:23
Speaker 2: really matter. And that was nice of the Kindhearts, but
30:26
Speaker 2: in the narrative, it actually seals it for Mrs. Newwood
30:29
Speaker 2: that it was a complete disaster, so much so that Mr.
30:33
Speaker 2: Kindheart felt comfortable saying it out loud.
30:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And this is the 1920s, and she
30:41
Speaker 1: closes the book with a bit on understanding that things
30:46
Speaker 1: change and not to condemn the younger generation's for being
30:51
Speaker 1: too fun and too loose with stuff. Like this was a,
30:54
Speaker 1: I mean, to put that out there in print in
30:56
Speaker 1: the 1920s of her saying like, hey, things change. Every
31:00
Speaker 1: generation is going to think the one below them is
31:03
Speaker 1: not doing it right. And that's not the way forward.
31:05
Speaker 1: It's just, it's kind of crazy that she had the foresight.
31:08
Speaker 1: Like people today don't have that kind of wisdom, I
31:10
Speaker 1: feel like. It's true.
31:12
Speaker 2: You're right. And she also went the other route too.
31:15
Speaker 2: And she basically was speaking to that younger generation and
31:18
Speaker 2: basically saying like, yeah, You guys have your own standards.
31:21
Speaker 2: You're the future. Here's the stuff that's really important that
31:25
Speaker 2: the old guard who you can, you know, feel some
31:28
Speaker 2: resentment or roll your eyes about. They had a lot
31:30
Speaker 2: of stuff that they really worked out over the years
31:33
Speaker 2: that actually is great. Here's that stuff that you need
31:36
Speaker 2: to learn. And then here's the other stuff that doesn't
31:38
Speaker 2: really matter that much. Or here's some of the silly
31:41
Speaker 2: jerks that you're going to encounter along your way.
31:44
Speaker 1: And maybe be kind to us when you're explaining new technologies.
31:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. For sure. Don't just say move and take over
31:53
Speaker 2: the computer.
31:54
Speaker 1: So obviously, you know, I said earlier, pretty soon people
31:58
Speaker 1: would be saying like she wrote the book on etiquette
32:00
Speaker 1: that despite her achievements writing books. And like you said,
32:05
Speaker 1: she had some pretty popular novels. She was the etiquette
32:09
Speaker 1: lady after that book came out three years after it
32:12
Speaker 1: came out. She tried one more novel, a society novel
32:16
Speaker 1: called Parade. And in the advertising campaign, they were just like, hey,
32:20
Speaker 1: this is Emily Post, the etiquette lady, like buy her
32:23
Speaker 1: her new book. And, you know, I think it did well.
32:25
Speaker 1: But that was the last novel that she wrote. Like
32:28
Speaker 1: it was pretty clear that people wanted to hear one
32:31
Speaker 1: thing out of her from then on.
32:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. Plus, she'd run out of ideas. It was just
32:35
Speaker 2: 300 pages describing a single parade. And the parade wasn't
32:38
Speaker 2: even that great. Oh. So let's bring it down a
32:43
Speaker 2: second here, Chuck, because tragedy strikes in Emily's life in
32:47
Speaker 2: 1927 when her beloved son, Bruce, the deuce, died of
32:52
Speaker 2: a ruptured appendix. He had a stomach ache leading up
32:56
Speaker 2: to it. Plenty of warning, but for some reason was
32:58
Speaker 2: being stubborn and wouldn't go to the hospital, despite his
33:01
Speaker 2: mother pleading with him to him. When he finally went,
33:04
Speaker 2: it was too late. He made it just past 32
33:08
Speaker 2: years old. So. He died quite young. And, you know,
33:11
Speaker 2: he was one of two. And Emily was quite devastated
33:14
Speaker 2: by this.
33:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, as anybody would be, obviously. So she does what
33:20
Speaker 1: a lot of people do and face with this kind
33:22
Speaker 1: of loss. She throws herself into work, tries to learn
33:25
Speaker 1: some new things like gardening. She became really into gardening.
33:29
Speaker 1: And she was like, I'm also, you know, my father
33:31
Speaker 1: was an architect. I'm going to honor him. She was
33:34
Speaker 1: obviously way into design and architecture. So She wrote a
33:38
Speaker 1: textbook on architecture and then continued to just pump out
33:42
Speaker 1: new versions of her etiquette book. I think in the
33:45
Speaker 1: end there were 10 updates and 90 different printings. But
33:50
Speaker 1: she I think the first revision of etiquette appeared after
33:55
Speaker 1: I think the same year her son died. And, you know,
33:59
Speaker 1: she in each version, she would make more concessions. She
34:03
Speaker 1: would kind of roll with the times a little bit
34:04
Speaker 1: and see, you know, it wasn't just a. sort of
34:07
Speaker 1: useless update. She was she was trying to update it
34:10
Speaker 1: and stay current.
34:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like she dropped, you know, the the proper way
34:13
Speaker 2: to behave in an opium den like that was no
34:16
Speaker 2: longer nearly as relevant.
34:18
Speaker 1: Exactly. Do whatever you want in there.
34:21
Speaker 2: Pretty much.
34:22
Speaker 1: One of the things she obviously had to roll with
34:24
Speaker 1: was like girls and dating and how that changed in
34:28
Speaker 1: the first edition. She talks about like chaperoning on dates
34:32
Speaker 1: and how like that's a good thing because you can
34:33
Speaker 1: be more free as a young woman with a chaperone there.
34:36
Speaker 1: But in the very next edition, she was like, OK,
34:40
Speaker 1: almost like an acknowledgement. She was like, yeah, you know,
34:43
Speaker 1: you can probably go out with a man alone at
34:45
Speaker 1: this point. It's fine. Right. And one of the kind
34:48
Speaker 1: of final things she did, you know, while she was
34:50
Speaker 1: not final thing she did. But as far as other
34:52
Speaker 1: kinds of writing, she put out a book under a
34:56
Speaker 1: pen name. I think she everyone knew her as an
34:58
Speaker 1: etiquette lady. So she wanted to see how she would
35:01
Speaker 1: do if like her name wasn't all over something.
35:03
Speaker 2: So.
35:04
Speaker 1: She wrote a series of I think they were published
35:07
Speaker 1: in a magazine and then compiled into a book. It
35:10
Speaker 1: was a parody with a pen named Muriel called How
35:12
Speaker 1: to Behave Though a Debutant. And it was some racy stuff.
35:17
Speaker 1: It was very bawdy. It was about a young woman
35:19
Speaker 1: who like talked about sex and all this stuff. And
35:23
Speaker 1: in the book, she talks about like encouraging the older
35:27
Speaker 1: generation to respect the youths and stuff like that and
35:30
Speaker 1: to accept change. But yeah. It was a pretty big hit.
35:35
Speaker 1: And then I think a few months after she came
35:37
Speaker 1: out was like, surprise, that's not Muriel. That's me, Emily Post.
35:42
Speaker 2: She had sparklers and everything.
35:43
Speaker 1: That's right. It's pretty cool.
35:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. And everybody was like, oh, well, you're a little
35:48
Speaker 2: racier than we thought, Emily.
35:49
Speaker 1: Exactly.
35:51
Speaker 2: I want to point out, you said that she wrote
35:53
Speaker 2: a textbook on architecture. That is mind boggling. That's not
35:58
Speaker 2: something the average person walking around could do. You could
36:01
Speaker 2: write a book, be like, this is a pretty neat house.
36:04
Speaker 2: And here's a little bit about it. She wrote a
36:06
Speaker 2: how to be an architect type book called The Personality
36:09
Speaker 2: of a House. And I saw that it was basically like, yeah,
36:14
Speaker 2: this is a good textbook on architecture.
36:17
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
36:18
Speaker 2: So, yes, she was pretty accomplished. And she was also
36:21
Speaker 2: very much looked up to during her lifetime. She lived
36:24
Speaker 2: till 1960. And 10 years before that, Pageant Magazine, which
36:29
Speaker 2: was named after the failed parade in her book Parade,
36:32
Speaker 2: they had a poll that said that Emily Post is
36:37
Speaker 2: second only to Eleanor Roosevelt for the list of most
36:41
Speaker 2: powerful women in America.
36:42
Speaker 1: It's pretty good.
36:44
Speaker 2: An etiquette writer. Yeah.
36:47
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, 10 updates and 90 printing.
36:50
Speaker 1: She ended up on radio. She had an advice column called,
36:55
Speaker 1: or I guess just a syndicated column, a daily column
36:57
Speaker 1: called In Good Taste that was in 200 newspapers. So
37:02
Speaker 1: she really was out there, like one of the most
37:04
Speaker 1: famous women in the United States in the 30s and 40s,
37:08
Speaker 1: I think.
37:09
Speaker 2: For sure. And then there's the Emily Post Institute, which
37:12
Speaker 2: is still around today, and they're making relevant stuff still today.
37:15
Speaker 2: I think it's largely carried on by her heirs and descendants.
37:21
Speaker 2: And they have stuff on like, You know, when it's
37:24
Speaker 2: okay and not okay to whip out your smartphone and
37:27
Speaker 2: just look at it in the middle of a crowd
37:29
Speaker 2: or in a conversation, like stuff that's relevant. And I
37:33
Speaker 2: came across something about, you know, how to interact with
37:38
Speaker 2: somebody who's grieving. And there is a lot of really
37:41
Speaker 2: good stuff in there. Like sometimes it's best just not
37:44
Speaker 2: to say anything and just be there with them. But
37:46
Speaker 2: they had a list of stuff not to say. And
37:49
Speaker 2: most of it makes sense. A couple of them jumped
37:51
Speaker 2: out at me like, who says this? One is everything
37:55
Speaker 2: happens for a reason.
37:57
Speaker 1: Worst.
37:58
Speaker 2: This one got me. If somebody whose child has died,
38:04
Speaker 2: don't say you can have other children. Oh, God. Who
38:08
Speaker 2: would say that?
38:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. That seems old fashioned.
38:12
Speaker 2: This is new. This is on their website right now.
38:14
Speaker 1: No, no, no. I mean, it seems like something people
38:17
Speaker 1: like used to say more.
38:19
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. When you had like a dozen kids as farmhands. Sure.
38:23
Speaker 2: It is God's will. You're not ready for that yet.
38:27
Speaker 2: I know just how you feel. And then the kicker.
38:32
Speaker 2: Did he have life insurance? Don't say that to somebody
38:35
Speaker 2: whose spouse has just died.
38:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. And in fact, if someone has any tragedy in
38:41
Speaker 1: their life, don't use the word I at all.
38:45
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good one, Chuck. That's a great one.
38:47
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter if you've been through the same thing. That
38:50
Speaker 1: is not a time for you to one-up or share
38:53
Speaker 1: your experience.
38:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. They said basically if you want to help, you say,
38:58
Speaker 2: I want to blank.
38:59
Speaker 1: No, don't say I.
39:00
Speaker 2: Whatever specific thing.
39:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
39:01
Speaker 2: The person who's standing in front of you.
39:04
Speaker 1: Me want to.
39:04
Speaker 2: Would like to. And then blank whatever thing you want
39:08
Speaker 2: to help with, like buy groceries or cook dinners or
39:10
Speaker 2: something like that. I'll get in touch with you soon
39:13
Speaker 2: to try to figure out the best time for you.
39:15
Speaker 2: So it's not like let me know if I can
39:17
Speaker 2: do anything because the person's not going to let you
39:19
Speaker 2: know if you can do anything, even if they need
39:21
Speaker 2: you to. You're saying I'm going to help you with this.
39:24
Speaker 2: I'll get in touch to make it as easy as
39:26
Speaker 2: possible on you. You don't have to do anything right now.
39:28
Speaker 2: I just wanted to put that on your radar.
39:30
Speaker 1: Yeah. Bye.
39:31
Speaker 2: Nice. Okay. Can I give one more Emily Post quote
39:36
Speaker 2: that I think really kind of holds true today, especially
39:39
Speaker 2: in this day and age that we've kind of been
39:41
Speaker 2: talking about? Yeah.
39:43
Speaker 1: Okay.
39:43
Speaker 2: Here it is. You ready?
39:45
Speaker 1: Yes.
39:45
Speaker 2: The best ingredients for likableness. So this is how to
39:49
Speaker 2: be likable. A happy expression of countenance, sure. An unaffected manner,
39:54
Speaker 2: like you said, not putting on airs. And a sympathetic attitude,
39:57
Speaker 2: caring about other people's life, lives. That's it. That's all
40:02
Speaker 2: you have to do for people to like you.
40:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
40:06
Speaker 2: Okay, well, that's it for Emily Post. And Chuck said
40:09
Speaker 2: he loves it, so obviously it's time for Listener Mail.
40:15
Speaker 1: We heard from a few Canadians about a mispronunciation that
40:17
Speaker 1: we're going to correct. Hey, guys, not trying to start
40:20
Speaker 1: a Josh fight here, even though I think covering the
40:22
Speaker 1: real one would be a hilarious short stuff. Josh is
40:28
Speaker 1: salt of the earth. How about that? Whose mind and
40:32
Speaker 1: sense of humor remind me of my own. But what
40:34
Speaker 1: I'm afraid is that some Canadians might sue Josh for
40:38
Speaker 1: pronouncing Sue St. Marie as salt St. Marie.
40:44
Speaker 2: How do you know the Canadians aren't mispronouncing it?
40:47
Speaker 1: Good point. Hey, guys, I know you never look at Wikipedia,
40:50
Speaker 1: but here's a link to that article, which begins with
40:52
Speaker 1: the pronunciation. But I'm just kidding. No Canadian would sue you,
40:56
Speaker 1: of course. It was just a play on words. Love
40:58
Speaker 1: the show. That is from Terrence Ward.
41:01
Speaker 2: Thank you, Terrence. And you hit peak Canadian when you
41:04
Speaker 2: explained that you were joking about Canadians suing us. So
41:07
Speaker 2: we love you even more for that now.
41:09
Speaker 1: That's right.
41:10
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Terrence and show off
41:12
Speaker 2: your Canadian-ness, we love that kind of thing. You can
41:15
Speaker 2: put it in an email and send it to stuffpodcasts
41:18
Speaker 2: at iheartradio.com.
41:23
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
41:26
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts
41:30
Speaker 1: are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.