Etiquette

INSIDE TODAY WHAT THEY'RE SAYING TODAY'S SUN COLUMNISTS Families finally meet' Two families, connected by one mother, finally meet after more than 55 years. Maryland baltimoresun.com/marbella Killer dessert topping Perfect for your next Baltimore-themed birthday party: Cupcakes sprinkled with shell casings from genuine criminal shootings. Maryland baltimoresun.com/vozzella OTHER VOICES Michael Sragow on Invasion -- Today Jean Marbella on two families -- Maryland Dan Steele on Jose pitching etiquette -- Sports 5 THINGS TO DO TODAY See J-Roddy Walston and the Business -- Local rock outfit J-Roddy Walston and the Business comes back to Baltimore tonight for a gig at the Ottobar.

Internet dating has grown so much in the past few years that admitting you've gone searching for love online is not that big a deal anymore. This is especially true for the younger generation. Yes, there are more of us dating online. Sixteen million Americans say they have used sites where they can meet people and find potential dates, according to a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But that doesn't mean it has completely lost its stigma. More importantly, many of us online daters don't know what we're doing.

Food fights. Making animal noises during dinner. Finger smudges on the tablecloth.It's one thing for young children to behave this way at home. But unmannerly deeds can lead to embarrassing moments during holiday gatherings. What's an anxious parent to do? Many are turning to etiquette experts, who have started tailoring sessions specifically to helping little ones mind their Ps and Qs during the holidays.Deana Evans, who recently enrolled her 6-year-old son Tyler in a class taught at the Carrolltown Library, has modest goals.

The prim woman at the front of the room is unrelenting:It's "may I?" not "can I?"It's "ma'am" and "sir" to your elders -- absolutely no first names, please.It's "excuse me" and "thank you" and feet on the floor and napkin folded neatly in the lap."This stuff is important," she says somberly, and the youngsters try extra hard not to squirm.Welcome to Etiquette 101, a course Anne Arundel County parents openly adore and children barely tolerate. The six-week course in Davidsonville, designed to ship your kid into shape for the bargain price of $120, is one of hundreds like it around the country.

WITH LAST WEEK'S opening of the General Assembly, Annapolis transportation officials have gone to their bag of tricks to try to prevent the event from turning the historic city into one big parking lot with traffic clogging Rowe Boulevard, parking garages full and residential neighborhoods choked with illegally parked cars.It's an annual battle in the state's capital -- and at times, it's not pretty.City traffic officials spent Friday lecturing rookie legislators on parking and shuttle etiquette, while the old-timers were warned against trying to beat the system.

BOSTON -- We are at lunch when my friend leans over the table to share his latest encounter with telephone technology.It all began with a voice-mail message, which wasn't in itself so startling. But my friend was at his desk when the phone didn't ring. A colleague, it seems, had learned how to dial directly into voice mail -- avoiding the middleman, or middle ear, entirely.Was my friend, a man who parses moral dilemmas for a living, insulted that this caller didn't want to speak to the real, live and available him?

Every weekend, thousands of Marylanders seeking respite from traffic congestion, thoughtless hordes and noisy neighborhoods strike out for the region's trails where they find more of the same.In the Baltimore-Washington area, where work and play often are approached with equal intensity and single-mindedness, it's no wonder that conflicts arise over the use of green space.Along the C&O Canal towpath in Montgomery County a jogger pulled a gun on a growling, unleashed dog. At Sugarloaf Mountain in Frederick County, two hikers nearly came to blows over a parking space.

RECENTLY, I TOOK part in a High Tea, which is a ritualistic British type of light meal involving a large quantity of etiquette.Generally, I do not get involved with any level of tea, even Low Tea. Generally, when I am in the market for an afternoon beverage ritual, the one I select is Cold Beer. But in this case I had High Tea because I was invited by etiquette expert Marjabelle Young Stewart, who is on a lifelong crusade to get Americans to use good table manners and for God's sake take off their baseball caps indoors.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Kenny Irwin looks at you with these bright, shimmering blue eyes and you immediately know why his mom is lobbying for a sunglasses contract that wouldn't require him to wear shades during interviews and in victory lane."

In the long hard season of the thank-you note, the best thing about Santa is that he doesn't require one.Never has. Never will. Never should, most people say.Not so, says Dorothea Johnson, etiquette expert and founder of the Protocol School of Washington. Long ago, when Johnson was a polite child growing up in Pinehurst, N.C., she always composed a Christmas appreciation to Santa. She always slaved over a note that mentioned every single gift he had brought her.It's still the proper thing to do, she says.

Men do it. Women do it. School kids do it. Parents with children in tow do it. Elderly women do it. Lawyers do it. Tourists do it. In all likelihood, if you're in Baltimore, visiting or living here, you do it, too. Jaywalk. It's dangerous, like street-corner Russian roulette. It's illegal, at least for half the day. But cops don't seem to consistently enforce the regulation, and the stern-looking, whistle-blowing traffic officers assigned to the Transportation Department are only authorized to write tickets for offenses committed on wheels.

As she watched the author of Choosing Civility turn the pages of a children's book on etiquette, Boi Carpenter-Mellady almost had to pinch herself. For Boi and her husband, Matthew Mellady, first-time authors and fans of P.M. Forni, awaiting his verdict on their almost-finished book seemed a bit surreal. After all, it was Forni's book that inspired the ubiquitous "Choose Civility in Howard County" car magnets. And his 208-page volume containing 25 rules of considerate conduct is used by many as a handbook for living a kinder and gentler life.

At my house, we make soup in the winter. We do this because, as the French chef Auguste Escoffier once said, "Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day and awakens and refines the appetite." And we do it because soup is relatively easy to assemble and results in terrific leftovers. Moreover, we make soup because it is warm and January in Baltimore is cold. I have downed a lot of soup in my time. But until recently, when I became schooled on soup etiquette by reading a variety of soup Web sites, the best being Soupsong, I was unaware of the fine points of genteel soup sipping.

Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners By Laura Claridge Random House / 525 pages / $30 As a young woman, Emily Post experienced the pros and cons of media attention. On the one hand, the society pages lovingly detailed her attendance at dinners and dances. But on the other, when her husband was caught in an extramarital affair, that, too, was in the news - including on the front page of her hometown paper, The Baltimore Sun. This is just one of the complex realities of Post's life recounted in Laura Claridge's new biography, the first of its kind about the woman who would set the standards for etiquette.

True or false? At a formal dinner, the napkin is always to the diner's left - specifically, to the left of the fork or forks. Everyone knows that the answer to this important etiquette question is: "True, usually. More or less. It depends." Recently, I was at a formal dinner, and I confidently took the napkin to my left, only to discover I had stolen the napkin of the person on my left, because this time the napkins had been cleverly set up in the coffee cups to the right. Aha! The "napkin in the beverage vessel" negates the widely recognized "napkin on the left" rule, because drinks are always placed to the diner's right.

When did it get so stressful, something that was supposed to be so much fun? When did the joy of finding just the right gift for someone and wrapping it in bright paper and ribbon turn into such a chore? Maybe it was after your sister had her third child, or you gained new in-laws when you remarried. You realized you were going to have to find the right gift not just for someone, but for many more people than you ever imagined. And the number seems to be growing every holiday season. Not to mention the fact that for many of those shopping for gifts this year, money is getting tighter as the economy worsens.

Youngsters at the Forest Park Branch library learned the finer points of etiquette and how to behave in formal occasions from the program "Dine Like a King or Queen." The course was taught by Cathleen Hanson of the International School of Protocol.

INSIDE TODAY WHAT THEY'RE SAYING TODAY'S SUN COLUMNISTS Families finally meet' Two families, connected by one mother, finally meet after more than 55 years. Maryland baltimoresun.com/marbella Killer dessert topping Perfect for your next Baltimore-themed birthday party: Cupcakes sprinkled with shell casings from genuine criminal shootings. Maryland baltimoresun.com/vozzella OTHER VOICES Michael Sragow on Invasion -- Today Jean Marbella on two families -- Maryland Dan Steele on Jose pitching etiquette -- Sports 5 THINGS TO DO TODAY See J-Roddy Walston and the Business -- Local rock outfit J-Roddy Walston and the Business comes back to Baltimore tonight for a gig at the Ottobar.

Internet dating has grown so much in the past few years that admitting you've gone searching for love online is not that big a deal anymore. This is especially true for the younger generation. Yes, there are more of us dating online. Sixteen million Americans say they have used sites where they can meet people and find potential dates, according to a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But that doesn't mean it has completely lost its stigma. More importantly, many of us online daters don't know what we're doing.

The Long Reach Community Association will offer "Stepping Out," a six-week session of classes in etiquette, social skills and self-improvement for boys and girls ages 8 to 13. The program is designed to encourage self-confidence, positive communication, attitudes and behavior, and appropriate manners. Classes will meet from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays, April 14 through May 19, at Stonehouse in the Long Reach Village Center. The cost is $150, with a 5 percent discount for residents of Columbia Association-assessed properties.