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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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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
People
Spite
Enlargement
Principle
Subscribe
Express
Disapproval
Claims
Etiquette
Americans
Correctness
Principles
Adapted
Term
Cover
Political
Claim
Pejorative

More quotes by Judith Martin

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When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.
Judith Martin
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What we have come to, through a combination of popular psychology and expanding technology, is a presumption that all our thoughts and feelings are worth uttering.
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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.
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Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.
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The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?
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In its natural state, the child tells the literal truth because it is too naive to think of anything else. Blurting out the complete truth is considered adorable in the young, right smack up to the moment that the child says, 'Mommy, is this the fat lady you can't stand?
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Chaperons, even in their days of glory, were almost never able to enforce morality what they did was to force immorality to be discreet. This is no small contribution.
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Honesty is a virtue, but not the only one. If you're in a courtroom you need the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the living room, sometimes you need anything but. Often.
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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.
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Perhaps the greatest rudenesses of our time come not from the callousness of strangers, but from the solicitousness of intimates who believe that their frank criticisms are always welcome, and who feel free to be themselves with those they love, which turns out to mean being their worst selves, while saving their best behavior for strangers.
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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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Parents should conduct their arguments in quiet, respectful tones, but in a foreign language. You'd be surprised what an inducement that is to the education of children.
Judith Martin
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I have always believed that the key to a happy marriage was the ability to say with a straight face, 'Why, I don't know what you're worrying about. I thought you were very funny last night and I'm sure everybody else did, too.
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.
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The more skillful the performance of false cheer, the more pleasing the effect is upon one's public and on that private audience to whom one owes even more.
Judith Martin
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The truly essential bargain between host and guest requires the guest only to respond promptly, show up on time, socialize with other guests, thank the host, write additional thanks and reciprocate. You needn't bring anything.
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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.
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The simple idea that everyone needs a reasonable amount of challenging work in his or her life, and also a personal life, complete with noncompetitive leisure, has never really taken hold.
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Generosity and gratitude are inseparably linked.
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For email, the old postcard rule applies. Nobody else is supposed to read your postcards, but you'd be a fool if you wrote anything private on one.
Judith Martin