Etiquette

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.

Dear Miss Manners: I am - I mean, a friend of mine is - a newly elected public official. As part of the celebration marking the start of his term, he is whistle-stopping through a couple of cities this Saturday en route to Washington. Unfortunately, in one of those cities, the mayor recently was indicted on criminal charges. Pity my poor pal, who already has worn out all his pick and roll moves avoiding a similarly sullied governor from his home state. Should I - I mean, he - just stay on the train to keep his distance from someone who now seems to be known, at least in the headlines, as "Mayor Indicted?"

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.

Is your turkey sandwich or fruit snack missing from the office fridge? The so-called fridge raid is a reality, so much so that it was ranked as the No. 1 worst office etiquette faux pas, according to a recent survey by TheLadders.com, a job site for executives. Nearly 98 percent of respondents said eating someone else's food from the office fridge was unacceptable, while 96 percent said bad hygiene was a no-no. The survey, with a margin of error of 1.9 percentage points, polled 2,520 executives.

This past summer, a Baltimore City condo owner was sound asleep when the racket outside his window jolted him awake. Groggy but curious, he lifted the bedroom blinds only to spy his new neighbors out back, playing what he described as a noisy game of pick-up basketball - at midnight. Once he got up, the 50-something homeowner couldn't get back to sleep, and he had to get up early for work the next morning. Neighborhood etiquette, a subjective term that covers a broad spectrum of community conduct, has stirred renewed attention of late, locally and nationwide.

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.

The program is designed to teach kids how to play golf. But on a recent afternoon about 20 children ranging in age from 7 to 17 gathered in the clubhouse at Wetlands Golf Course in Aberdeen to practice proper handshaking technique. They also worked on how to introduce themselves. Once the 15-minute life skills session was completed, the children headed outside to hone their golf skills. "We start out learning how to meet and greet people, and how to just be nicer," said Emily Rippel, a 14-year-old Bel Air resident.