Etiquette In North America
Etiquette rules in the United States and Canada generally apply to all individuals, unlike cultures with more formal class structures, such as those with nobility and royalty.
Both Canada and the United States have shared cultural and linguistic heritage originating in Europe, and as such some points of traditional European etiquette apply to both, especially in more formal settings; however, each have formed their own etiquettes as well.
Among the most prominent writers on North American etiquette are Meloise, Letitia Baldrige, Judith Martin, Emily Post, Elizabeth Post, Peggy Post, Gertrude Pringle, and Amy Vanderbilt.
Read more about Etiquette In North America: Principles, General Standards
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“The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“Books treating of etiquette ... are often written by dancing-masters and Turveydrops and others knowing little of the customs of the best society of any land.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)
“The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
“All this stuff you heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.... Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost—and will never lose—a war, because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.”
—Francis Ford Coppola (b. 1939)