Word: debrett
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Debrett's Etiquette and Modern Manners is the newest cousin of Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage, the classic guide to British bluebloods, which dates back to 1802. The 400-page manual meanders from behavior in the presence of royalty (curtsying is no longer necessary-bowing from the neck will do) to homey advice on how to handle drunks or carve a chicken. It is all right now to turn your fork over and scoop peas up with the aid of a knife, notes the book, but only with elbows tight to the sides so the person alongside will...
...Debrett is too squeamish to say much about sex, and the little counsel that is offered tends to be erratic. Men should rise for a woman after work, but not at an office meeting. A hostess can, in good conscience, allow an unmarried couple to share a bedroom (a stunning advance from the Victorian days when etiquette guides recommended that even books by unmarried male and female writers be kept on separate shelves). At large parties, however, coats should be sexually segregated-women's in the bedroom, men's in the hall...
...etiquette book is one sign of staid old Debrett's new friskiness since H.B. Brooks-Baker, 47, an American who married a European aristocrat, took it over in 1976. He pushed the company into the black by reaching out to the British middle class and the American market, publishing books satirizing the rich and cashing in on the Roots fad by offering to trace family trees for Yanks...
Those titled folk in the pages of Debrett's Peerage are no strangers to the pages of TIME. In the past 58 years, regal faces have appeared on 79 covers; Britain's Prince Charles was our subject in 1969 and 1978. For this week's cover story on his betrothed, Lady Diana Spencer, London Bureau Chief Bonnie Angelo concentrated on the former World's Most Eligible Bachelor. Angelo's first experience as a royalty watcher dates back to 1957, when she covered Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's visit to Canada and Washington. This...
...bride, however, had to be unblemished. "First on the list was virginity," insisted H.B. Brooks-Baker of Debrett's, the chronicler of British bloodlines, who once drew up a few requirements that aspiring Princesses of Wales should meet. "Second was the ability to do the job. Very few people understand how many really dreary things royalty must do. Third, she must be seen to have the potential to bear heirs to the throne [meaning that she should look young and robust]." Presumably Lady Diana has met and passed these obstacles...