E-Book Overview
How to Be a Gentleman: A Timely Guide to Timeless Manners is the revised and updated edition of the smash-hit How to Be a Gentleman and offers practical advice on being a gentleman in the twenty-first century. Should you take your BlackBerry on vacation? What is the best way to accept a compliment? Is an e-mail an acceptable means of writing a Thank-You note? While the tenets of gracious behavior never change, the situations a gentleman faces do and have changed significantly in the last ten years. In this revised, updated, and expanded version of the bestselling How to Be a Gentleman, Bridges addresses new issues such as airport security, Bluetooth and BlackBerry usage, and appropriate internet and instant message communication. Still featured are topics ranging from how to receive a compliment to how to act at funerals. Certain to be the must-have guide for the modern gentleman, this revised edition will echo the success of its predecessor.
E-Book Content
How TO BE A
GENTLEMAN
Other GentleManners® Books A Gentleman Entertains John Bridges and Bryan Curtis As a Gentleman [Would Say John Bridges and Bryan Curtis A Gentleman Gets Dressed Up John Bridges and Bryan Curtis A Gentleman at the Table John Bridges and Bryan Curtis Toasts and Tributes John Bridges and Bryan Curtis A Gentleman Abroad John Bridges and Bryan Curtis How to Be a Lady Candace Simpson-Giles As a Lady Would Say Sheryl Shade A Lady at the Table Sheryl Shade with John Bridges and Bryan Curtis so Things a Young Gentleman Should Know John Bridges and Bryan Curtis How to Raise a Gentleman Kay West How to Raise a Lady Kay West
How
TO BE A
GENTLEMAN REVISED AND EXPANDED
A TIMELY GUIDE TO TIMELESS MANNERS JOHN BRIDGE S
For CLAY ISAACS, who was born knowing all these things (1998 edition) For BILL WALKER, who has listened for 25 years' worth of Sundays (2008 edition)
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ix The Fundamental Things Apply 1 o Eternal Truths of the Gentlemanly Life xv Chapter One A Gentleman Experiences Real Life 1 Chapter Two A Gentleman Gets Dressed 53 Chapter Three A Gentleman Goes to Dinner 75 Chapter Four A Gentleman Says the Right Thing 94 Chapter Five A Gentleman Gives a Party 117 Chapter Six A Gentleman Goes to a Party 135 Chapter Seven A Gentleman and His Friends 153 Chapter Eight A Gentleman Goes to the Office 179 Chapter Nine A Gentleman Gets Equipped 200 Chapter Ten Extreme Etiquette 212
INTRODUCTION When the first edition of How to Be a Gentleman was published ten years ago, correct, considerate behavior was being challenged on every side. The premise of that book was that men, as a rule, leave it up to the women in their lives (their mothers, their wives, their girlfriends, and women who are simply their friends, with no blood relation and no romantic attachment) to tell them how to behave. Since it seemed to answer all the burning good-behavior questions of the moment, How to Be a Gentleman proved to be hugely successful; in fact, it has gone on to be translated into more than a dozen foreign languages, doing its part to bring civility to the world at large. Nevertheless, life has changed a great deal over the past ten years, and gentlemen are now left on their own, almost at every turn. Cell phones are everywhere, barking out at us in airports, in grocery stores, and in movie theatres. Unless a gentleman is an absolute Luddite, e-mail is a central part of his life. He must remind himself, at all times, to check up on his text messages. Written correspondence seems even more antiquated than before. Dress codes seem to fluctuate every time a new star wears his shirttail out or tucks his shirttail in while walking down a red carpet. And yet certain truths remain unchanged, and the desire for gentlemanliness persists, as well. No matter how much the world may change, a gentleman still