Modern Manners

SAFE CONDUCT--Margaret Fishback--Modern Age ($.75),* Harcourt, Brace ($2).

Normality, says the psychologists, is to be judged by your adjustment to your social environment. If the psychologists are right, then the big books of etiquette are, next to success stories, the most neurosis-making books current. For nowhere else can you find advice more irrelevant to the modern mode of life.

In her own whimsical way, Margaret Fishback backs this thesis, and Safe Conduct is her try at etiquette suited to the times. By profession, writer of institutional advertising for Macy's department store, light-verse writer on the side, she is liveliest in razzing those dexterous dopes who figure with such passionless gallantry in the etiquette books of Emily Post and Margery Wilson. On the technical side, she dictates only a bare minimum of ritual. She believes that etiquette should spring from a kind heart; her Golden Rule is "use the head and heart, and let the boiled shirts fall where they may." Etiquetteer Fishback's rules aim to correct the bad manners which come from the fact that urban dwellers, for the most part, are indifferent to each other.

Sample modern etiquette:

For Girls: If your escort gets too drunk and assertive, don't ask him in. "Don't laugh at him when he makes love to you, even though he looks funny."

Out-of-Town Visitors: Don't imagine your friends want to spend all night helping raise hell; they were probably out late the night before too.

Subway commuters: When pushed, push back.

Guests: At cocktail parties, don't burn up the rugs and table tops, don't slop drinks, don't stay all night.

Hosts: Don't force your guests to drink themselves under the table.

Maids, butlers: It is incorrect to say: "A lady has just passed out in the green bedroom, Madam." Say simply: "Mrs. Soandso" instead of "Madam."

Random etiquette: Don't snarl at waiters and taxi drivers. CLEAN YOUR SIDEWALK, CURB YOUR DOG.

*Paper-bound.

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