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What a Rancher wants - Etiquette?
By:J.D. Hawk – Staff Writer
August 2004Mind your P’s and Qs because etiquette instructor Maggie O’Farrill is making her rounds throughout Otay Ranch during the months of August and September.
“I cannot believe the response we’ve had,” Heritage Recreation Center supervisor Tony Ramos said.
If you’ve watched the DVD of the Warner Bros. movie “What a Girl Wants” that was released 12 months ago, you may recognize her as the lady who gives the play-by-play commentary on manners during the extra features in the DVD version.
Though O’Farrill has been raised with etiquette and has taught manners for most of her life through her mother’s own finishing school, she has focused on children for the last seven years. She believes that if children are taught manners at an early age, the behavior becomes more natural to them.
On the DVD, she teaches how to walk properly, sit properly and how to butter bread. But in her classes being taught at the Heritage Recreation Center and three local elementary schools in August, she teaches more than 200 different etiquette rules. She then reviews the class at the end of the session to see how much they can remember. Two hundred rules may seem like a lot but, “Usually they can remember 50 of the rules,” she said. “And I always give them the reason behind the rule.”
Some rules of etiquette, such as silverware placement, can be traced back to the 15th century, O’Farrill said. And the reason behind the not putting elbows on the table might have come into existence because of a poking or stabbing.
“People hold the knife and the fork in their hand and then they start talking with their hands,” she said. “If their elbows are on the table they will start hurting somebody.”
In “What a Girl Wants,” manners become such an issue that it begins to eat away from the main character’s personality.
But O’Farrill said that manners should not become such a concern as to cause an unrelaxed situation. And she employs several tricks to help children maintain a relaxed attitude. Parents, generally, are not allowed to attend their children’s class because O’Farrill believes that gawking parents cause children to become uptight. She also teaches the children to avoid shyness in social discussions by not thinking about it as a conversation. “Don’t be afraid to speak, because you’re not going to speak. You’re going to ask them questions.”
There are many rules of etiquette that have waned through time. Children are never supposed to call an adult by their first name unless given permission. But when O’Farrill, herself was a child, she said the first name rule applied to adults speaking to other adults too.
Handshakes are tricky as well. A boy isn’t supposed to extend his hand to the father of his date until the father extends his hand first. The daughter cannot invite the father to extend his hand to the date either.
Gentlemen are never supposed to extend their hand out to a lady until the lady first offers her hand. Basically, the one who needs to do the impressing waits for the one who needs to be impressed to offer his or her hand first.
Never ask somebody over 21 how old they are. Never ask somebody what their father does for a living. And it’s only permissible to ask what somebody does for a living on a second meeting, because this could be interpreted as judging somebody based on money.
“Manners has nothing to do with snobbery. Money has nothing to do with manners,” she said. “Elegance is what you have. It’s how you behave.
But the most abused rule of etiquette, according to O’Farrill, is failing to say hello or good-bye to somebody who is recognized. She’s not sure why this is but guessed it’s because of time constraints. People somehow believe that a single hello is good for weeks on end – but that’s not proper.
“You need to say hello every day you meet somebody. You can’t pretend that you don’t know someone you obviously know!”
O’Farrill has taught etiquette classes since she took over her mother’s finishing class in Los Angeles in 1966. She’s taught in Manhattan Beach, Torrance, Long Beach, San Diego and Beverly Hills, where she was found for the movie.
For information on children’s classes and a possible adult class, call the Heritage Recreation Center at 421-7032.
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