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A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful.

Judith Martin

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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Female
Parent
Child
Young
Done
Children
Something
Dreadful
Lady

More quotes by Judith Martin

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Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.
Judith Martin
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What restricts the use of the word 'lady' among the courteous is that it is intended to set a woman apart from ordinary humanity, and in the working world that is not a help, as women have discovered in many bitter ways.
Judith Martin
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Dishonesty is not the only alternative to honesty. There is also the highly underrated virtue of shutting up.
Judith Martin
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Like language, a code of manners can be used with more or less skill, for laudable or for evil purposes, to express a great variety of ideas and emotions. In itself, it carries no moral value, but ignorance in use of this tool is not a sign of virtue.
Judith Martin
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Nowadays people consider it a disgrace to admit that they are not stressed.
Judith Martin
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it's no longer socially acceptable to make bigoted statements and racist remarks. Some people are having an awful time with that: 'I didn't know anybody would be offended!' Well, where have you been? I remember when people got away with it and they don't anymore. That's fabulous.
Judith Martin
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The pejorative term political correctness was adapted to express disapproval of the enlargement of etiquette to cover all people, in spite of this being a principle to which all Americans claim to subscribe.
Judith Martin
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The challenge of manners is not so much to be nice to someone whose favor and/or person you covet (although more people need to be reminded of that necessity than one would suppose) as to be exposed to the bad manners of others without imitating them.
Judith Martin
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many of the guests will eventually leave the table to watch football on television, which would be a rudeness at any other occasion but is a relief at Thanksgiving and probably the only way to get those people to budge.
Judith Martin
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When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.
Judith Martin
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Visiting the sick is supposed to exhibit such great virtue that there are some people determined to do it whether the sick like it or not. ... All visitors everywhere are supposed to make plans to depart if they observe their hosts visibly wilting or in pain, but this is especially true at hospitals.
Judith Martin
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A small wedding is not necessarily one to which very few people are invited. It is one to which the person you are addressing is not invited.
Judith Martin
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The etiquette of intimacy is very different from the etiquette of formality, but manners are not just something to show off to the outside world. If you offend the head waiter, you can always go to another restaurant. If you offend the person you live with, it's very cumbersome to switch to a different family.
Judith Martin
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Washington knows that it is not safe to kick people who are down until you find out what their next stop will be.
Judith Martin
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When politeness is used to show up other people, it is reclassified as rudeness. Thus it is technically impossible to be too polite.
Judith Martin
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There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
Judith Martin
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A lot of men got upset at the feminist movement because they had all the toys and we wanted some.
Judith Martin
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Meanwhile, the empty forms of social behavior survive inappropriately in business situations. We all know that when a business sends its customers 'friendly reminders,' it really means business.
Judith Martin
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It's far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
Judith Martin
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Screening telephone calls with a receptionist or the humbler answering machine is not a dishonorable thing to do. The warmest people in the world still need uninterrupted time to attend to their lives and should not be outwitted if they have made it obvious that they are not always available upon summons.
Judith Martin