Things You Need to Be Told (Paperback)

~ The Etiquette Grrls (Author), (Author), Honore McDonough Ervin (Author) "Just because you are in your own home is no reason to neglect Good Manners and become a noisy, inconsiderate, slothful, unhygienic, and Rude Creature..." (more)
Key Phrases: palmtop computers, Etiquette Grrls, Prep School, Urban Decay (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"The Etiquette Grrls are very funny, very wise, and very in your face. It's easier to learn manners when you're laughing rather than crying." (Letitia Baldrige)

It is indeed a Tacky, Rude World, which we inhabit. The Etiquette Grrls have decided that things are simply getting out of hand, and they have Taken It Upon Themselves to step in with a helpful guide to navigate the Etiquette Quandaries in your day-to-day life. They dish up advice on cohabitation, letter-writing, telephoning, traveling, grooming, drinking, dining, dating, and marriage and, it would be Terribly Rude of you not to pay attention.

Who are they, you ask, to be writing such a book? The Etiquette Grrls are graduates of New England Preparatory Schools and Prestigious Colleges; they are throwers of Great Parties; they can hold their liquor; their expertise on fashion and makeupand-especially Subversive Nail Polish colors-knows no bounds; they wear Doc Martens with their cashmere twin sets; and, most important, they know what they're talking about.

The Etiquette Grrls' advice has been featured in Ladies Home Journal, Chicago Sun-Times, and Business Week Online. Their own website, EtiquetteGrrls.com-cited as one of the best on the Web by excite.com, best-of-the-web.net, projectcool.com, and college newspapers throughout the country-provides monthly features and weekly responses to the Etiquette Quandaries of their loyal readers.

About the Author

Lesley Carlin & Honore McDonough Ervin are The Etiquette Grrls, creators of the interactive website which allows readers to ask and answer questions on any subject from martinis to cell phones.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade (October 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 042518370X
• ISBN-13: 978-0425183700
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #786,933 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

142 of 158 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Things The Etiquette Grrls Need to Be Told, February 4, 2002

By	deety "book nerd" (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

First of all, it is Very Tiresome to have things Randomly Capitalized. It may be Slightly Charming in the context of a Short Article, but in a Terribly Long Book it is distracting and Difficult To Read. Secondly, using Quaint Expressions is also Mildly Cute for awhile, but after they use the Childish Adjective "wee" for the twentieth time, it gets old as well. Dear Readers, are we really to think that The Etiquette Grrls speak this way in their Daily Lives? I doubt it. The Affected Tone of this book makes it Difficult To Relate To.

Another thing that makes it hard to relate to the Etiquette Grrls is their Attitudes. The only Actual Etiquette in this book involves things like introducing people to Each Other, and not talking on your cell 'phone (yes, they Do Indeed write it 'phone) During A Movie. The rest of the book is full of things like their fashion advice--which is not All That Good. Be warned, Dear Reader, that The Etiquette Grrls think the height of slightly edgy fashion is wearing Doc Martens and Urban Decay nail color. Also interesting is the Dating Advice, in which you learn that girls should not Ask Boys For a Date, and the best way to Manage Your Boyfriend is with a system of punishments based on the Demerit Systems of their New England Boarding Schools. Sadly, I am Not Kidding.

They also sound Quite A Bit Snobby, managing to offend my Southern Sensibilities by claiming that "Grits is not a food." They make fun of clothing, music choices, and events which are Not To Their Taste. Which seems to me to be The Height of Rudeness. I, like the Etiquette Grrls, do not enjoy NASCAR, but I would never suggest that it is not a "proper" place for anyone to be.

So the advice of The Etiquette Grrls will only Be Of Great Interest to other well-bred women who are products of New England boarding schools, and I'd imagine those "grrls" need no help from The Etiquette Grrls as they would have learned All Of These Things Already.

97 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars things you need to be told in order to be...pretentious, February 13, 2003

By	"intello_2000" (Charlottesville, VA United States) - See all my reviews

While some passages in this book appealed to me, I did find their style of writing and their opinion to be nothing but pretentious.
I was myself raised in Paris till my late teens, and have travelled quite a deal around the world and mastered several languages, including Latin and Classical Greek. However, I consider it outmost pretention and rudeness to drop in foreign words in my English conversation in order to sound "sophisticated".
Also, what is up with all the capitalized words? Improper use of grammar is tacky.
As far as choosing which cocktail, I consider it ridiculous to judge who you are by what your taste buds crave for at the moment. There are times that I enjoy a blue Hawaiian, and others when I could get by with a French 75. It all depends on MY mood, not some other person's opinion.
Real sophistication and class is within. People who look for material things to seek validation are extremely insecure, and that is the outmost lack of style.

48 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Things you SHOULDN'T need to be told., January 13, 2003

By	T. Grasso "tgrasso" (Beverly, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Etiquette Grrls, as they refer to themselves throughout the book, might have some advice to give someone some day, perhaps after they've done something other than dress themselves, shop, make artichoke dip, and then "toss back a few". However, unless you need to be told not to prune the potted plants in hotels (this is really in the book) you certainly do not need thier advice on anything.

They start out by telling you how to set a table (something covered much more adequately in either Emily Post or Miss Manners). They don't get much wrong there, but once they start on fashion their advice becomes laughable. The Etiquette girls have confused Good Manners and Good Grooming with Purchasing Power. The quality that sets one apart from the unwashed masses, is, apparently, the ability to afford Coach bags and Ann Taylor Cashmere twinsets. Indeed, the only thing that seems to save them from the black skirt/twin set automaton look is their bravery in choosing nailpolish colors. Urban Decay creates colors that make the Etiquette grrls feel a little better in their extremely limited world of fashion. On the back of the book, the picture of the Etiquette grrls shows them dressed exactly alike: Little black dress, string of pearls. They look like a matched set of bookends.

When they tackle the social scene, it really does become pathetic. They are truly convinced that making catty remarks about the clothing and appearance of other party guests makes them seem witty. They think their ability to mix canned artichoke hearts with mayonnaise and bake it in the oven makes them accompmlished hostesses.

By the time they get to relationships, they have long since lost all credibility and the book becomes merely laughable. Freud would have a veritable field day with their directions on "disciplining boyfriends" with the nostalgic longing for the
strict discipline of their prep school headmaster. And indeed, if there is a poor chap out there who has really served a two-week sentence of early morning dog-walking for forgetting to call one of the etiquette girls, please let him come forward so that we can get him into therapy as soon as possible.

Their advice on travel really is nothing more than one long whine about how expensive first class has become. There is no good advice here, they simply tell you to keep your shoes on, because the Etiquette Grrls simply do not want to see your socks.
These are not women who have ever taken a 12 hour red-eye in an emergency situation.

The Etiquette Grrls only source of entertainment seems to be Gin and Tonics. They do not talk about many other activities, and, indeed, a High Etiquette Crime seems to be anything that would impede or slow down an Etiquette Grrl from making or purchasing a good stiff drink. Perhaps after their first stint at the Betty Ford clinic, they might broaden their horizons a bit.

One has to also bring the editing of this book into question. They are trying really hard to copy Judith Martin's style of refering to herself in the third person and waxing nostalgic for days of yore, but the Etiquette Grrls can't quite pull it off. They declare themselves as equipped with complete mastery of the English language, Dear Reader. They use Dear Reader ad nauseum (at one point, three times in one three sentence paragraph). Their use of capitalization, which they defend as being perfectly correct, may indeed be so. But correct and irritating are not mutually exclusive terms. The only way this could have been published is if one of the Grrls Mum or Daddy has a connection in the publishing world, and the editor just didn't care enough to put much into it.

In short, if you are interested in matters of Etiquette, please stick with Judith Martin. She is timeless, smart, and witty. The Etiquette girls are confused. Skip this one, I wish I did.
It is the one book I have bought in my long life of reading that I would return.