Talk:Etiquette in Europe

Vandalism

Check the article for vandalism 91.153.228.113 (talk) 22:14, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Is this actually an article? None of these "facts" have citations.

--Johnnydc 06:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Violates WP:NOT#GUIDE fairly comprehensively due to being a how-to guide on etiquette with elements of a travel guide. Also fails to represent a worldwide view (WP:CSB) by being generally targeted at a US audience (and manages the impressive feat of appearing condescending to both Americans and Europeans). I would seriously consider nominating this article for deletion. --carelesshx _talk 23:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It's fascinating and useful. While certainly it would be appropriate in any guide, I do not see why one would not have such information on etiquette in particular regions and countries in an encyclopaedia. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing people should be worrying about is improving the style/content of this article, although it's a fair sight more useful already than say our "master" article on Tradition (apparently one of the most important 150 articles for an encyclopaedia to have.

I have to wonder at people wanting to delete everything that doesn't seem quite right, or fitting our ever-changing and inconsistent "guidelines" or "policies". zoney ♣ talk 23:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The article is certainly not up to par. As goes for the corresponding "etiquette" articles about other continents. While you can certainly write about Etiquette, it should be in an encyclopedic - meaning that it should describe particular traditions and etiquette, their history, etc.

This is just a guide "how to behave", which is misplaced here. If you want to write this kind of stuff consider Wikitravel, where it is welcomed. It's not enough for something to be fascinating and useful to meet Wikipedia standards.

Moreover, Europe (or Africa, or ...) is much too diverse to have a useful "Etiquette" article. This article is just a list of (supposed) behaviour rules, which in most cases are irrelevant or wrong. All information that could possible of value about this topic could easily be included in the sections/articles about the individual countries.

Has this already been nominated for deletion? Averell (talk) 18:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Etiquette_in_Europe&diff=prev&oldid=222531968 - June 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Etiquette_in_Europe&diff=prev&oldid=133361921 - May 2007

Check out the constantly removed entries still on record in the article 'View History' page. Some of them were properly sourced, but the rest is on the field of WP:OR (Original research). Etiquette changes over time and seems to be in Europe, there has been socioeconomic class variance in the rules of etiquette. But today, Europe is a more egalitarian society and lessened in rigid strict social mores, in some ways, became more socially liberal in observance of etiquette than North America (that article was more from passages from the Miss Manners' Guide to Etiquette). 71.102.1.101 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC).

Multiculturalism

Unter the heading Multiculturalism, I found the following sentence;

"...to badger a Hindu to accept food that violates her dietary laws is a faux pas that would offend many Europeans (and educated people elsewhere) regardless of their own denominational backgrounds.

Does this imply that Europeans are the standard by which all "educated" people elsewhere are measured? This statement smacks of ethnocentrism. I suggest it should be revised.

On a side note, my experience as an African in Europe are to the contrary. I often get "badgered", more so than I would elsewhere. While I accept this, and view it more as natural interest or curiosity, it can lead to some tense moments, particularly when dealing with some people.

It's a rather poorly written subsection in general, I think. Why is the Hindu in the example female? Is it just to prove that the writer is not a sexist? I think so.

It is misleading, at best, since it implies that badgering a male Hindu to eat beef is in some way acceptable, at least according to these (slightly spurious) laws of etiquette.Malcolm Starkey 22:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

It is important but two-sided for Europeans to insist foriegn born people who wish to become citizens of their countries to be integrated, assimilated and to abide by their sociocultural rules, then again the hosts do not want to offend, hurt feelings and deprive the newcomers of their cultural or religious rights. Also the risk of scapegoating immigrants for social, political and economic problems is not totally forbidden, since there are far-right wing political groups known to gain power and seats by inflaming such feelings by accusatory nativist rhetoric. But any newcomer who immigrates to another nation (this is also true in the USA) to follow the country's rules, even though in Islam and Eastern cultures, and third world countries' sociocultural rules are gender-stratified, and there, women are often placed in secondary ranks or roles in their families and communities. + 71.102.11.193 (talk) 22:48, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Door holding

I added a mention to door holding in the UK section, but does it happen elsewhere in Europe? Uncoolbob 23:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, at least in Finland and the Nordic countries generally it is polite to hold the door for the person following you but it's not exactly required of you. Of course if the door has an aggressive closing mechanism, you are expected to take this into account as to not cause injuries when someone follows you close by, but that's just common sense :) . Then there's the old gentlemanly etiquette of holding doors open for women which is sometimes still observed, but mostly rather infrequently due to the ruling philosophy of gender equality.

By the way, I noticed that many (if not most) of the British rules of etiquette mentioned in the article are the same for Finland as well. Finnish etiquette is of course of Scandinavian origin (mainly by way of Sweden due to 700 years of "cohabitation" in the Swedish realm) but the UK's major cultural influences are truly mixed: Celtic, Roman, Germanic (Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian), French/Western European and later colonial sources. So, I'm amazed that there aren't too many differences in customs between the UK and the Nordic countries. Maybe it's because the Nordic countries have had such a strong commerce early on with the British Isles — like timber and tar for the ship building industry — this could have made the petty-bourgeois merchants in the smaller Scandinavian countries adopt more British than French or German customs as a matter of prestige. On the other hand it's hard to imagine an inverse process because the Nordic countries have been less developed (and smaller and subsequently less influential) than Great Britain for the most part of the second millennium and it's generally known that cultural influences go from the high-prestige culture to the low-prestige one and not vice versa. --jibun_{≈παντα ρει≈} (keskustele!) 00:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Door holding is observed in Portugal as well —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.74.7 (talk) 18:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

"it's generally known that cultural influences go from the high-prestige culture to the low-prestige one and not vice versa" Untrue, also the state of the english even today is somewhat barbaric by comparison to the continent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.240.116 (talk) 00:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Scandinavia

I believe somebody should correct the Scandinavian chapter for the simple reason that Finland is included in it. I am not an expert, so I will let somebody else doing it.

Turkuamk 18:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes indeed, this section should be titled The Nordic countries; nonetheless this section is the appropriate one for Finland because for the most part the Finnish etiquette (and culture) is the same as the Swedish one. The T-V distinction is observed slightly more often in Finland than in Sweden but other than that I can't recall any major differences (other than the majority language of course) between the two countries. I was born to Finnish immigrants in Sweden and moved to Finland when I was 10, so I should know. --jibun_{≈παντα ρει≈} (keskustele!) 01:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright, here's my version of the section which prefers the phrase Nordic countries instead of Scandinavia when possible. You can see the changes here. If no-one opposes, I'm going to deploy the changes into the article. Improvements solicited. --jibun_{≈παντα ρει≈} (keskustele!) 03:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Sardinia

For foreigners it is not understandable, but in Italy the stereotype of a Sardinian is a shepherd, ignorant, talking in a very bad Italian. For its history (look at the articles), language and traditions were downplayed, or prohibited. The long-lasting isolation was a factor to these stereotypes, and played a makor role in our language, which began to be contaminated by Italian just in the late 60s.

We might take a joke on our shepherd heritage laughing, but it may put you in a very bad position. As for our language, it is a language, not a dialect, and we are very proud of it, so again jokes may be accepted, may be not. - signed by anon IP

Sardinians and Corsicans (they dealt with the same social stigma by the continental French) alike don't like ethnic jokes, slurs and stereotypes that depict their own people as inferior, backwards or stupid. This is also illegal in many European countries to publically ignite racial or ethnic discourse over the air waves, or in a public setting. To make fun of Sardinian, Corsican or southern Italian peoples (esp. Sicilians are mafia, violent or half-African, all popularly muttered in the north) is the same level of offensiveness like one to make comments and racial insults towards African-Americans, Jewish people or the Romanies (i.e Gypsies) which will land you in legalities. +71.102.11.193 (talk) 22:40, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

American Section

I deleted that little warning to Americans about the faux pas of bring up American Foreign Policy.It has no place here.

At least I THINK I deleted it.Still new here.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Callisto1 (talk • contribs) 09:42, 25 May 2007

An IP address has deleted the section several times today without leaving an explanation in the edit summary, so the deletion ends up being reverted as vandalism. You should make sure to leave an edit summary when you make any edit, but especially for deletions of material.—Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 10:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I got it :D Ryratt —Preceding comment was added at 15:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Americans need to be polite and respectful to the traditions of European countries' decisions in political, religious, moral or cultural, and historical mechinations. The US has been a friend and foe, and arrogant or ignorant about the countries' feelings about such issues they learn to live with. In France, don't bring up both American, French or any countries' politics and cultural differences. The French tend to be more secular, socialistic and homogeneous (or desire to preserve tradition), and have suffered more under the Nazi occupation, post-colonial shock and the immigrants from former French colonies they have, and finally, the French Revolution shouldn't be really discussed except they will remind an American they shared the same woes in the 18th century under an abusive oppressive king like us. Also the older generations who lived in the two world wars are very thankful for the US army liberated the country, but divided over the US' installment of Charles De Gaulle into presidency and many French came to think Communism isn't immoral or sinister. The French are sensitive towards race or ethnicity, due to the country's integration dogma of anyone born on French soil is a Frenchmen, no matter what race, color, language, religion and neighboring nationality the person is...and they disliked the US' history of race relations towards African-Americans and Native Americans, even compare it rightfully to anti-Semitism and xenophobia the French admit they long struggled with. + 71.102.11.193 (talk) 22:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Poland

I've removed the following, which is not clearly explained, more common in the southern Poland and does not only concern medical staff.

Doctors, even in social situations are often addressed as "pan doktor" or "pani doktor" (Mr. Doctor or Mrs. Doctor). This is due to class division and many people still believing doctors are of higher class and/or breeding.

Expansion

These articles should be expanded into separate articles. There is one for the Dutch already, so why not have one for the United Kingdom, Germany, and France as well? It would be interesting to learn more about their unique customs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Klichka (talk • contribs) 19:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Croatia: the three fingers.

While in Croatia, you can not hold up the thumb, index, and middle finger to indicate the number 3. It's deeply upsetting. Apparently it goes back to the Balkan war.

Serbs, who are generally Orthodox Christians, wave their hand in this gesture during various religious ceremonies to signal a cross, much in the same way Catholics signal a cross.

The three fingers was displayed by Serbs during the Balkan war to symbolise victory. After the war, it was used to antagonise Croatian's, particularly during sporting events. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.222.6.200 (talk) 23:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It is unfortunate for Serbs, Croats and former Yugoslavs to share a common ethnic origin, linguistics and region they long lived in close to each other, except they are two peoples and cultures which have clashed often violently in their history. + 71.102.11.193 (talk) 22:50, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Ireland

To Irish people, you are only Irish if you grew-up or were born in Ireland

This sounds a bit strange and rather subjective. It would mean that James Connolly, Erskine Hamilton Childers, Robert Erskine Childers and loads more would not be allowed to call themselves Irish? LOL, talk about POV. Hereitisthen (talk) 20:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC) accordind to jerky Etiquette is one of the important thing in the world but when you visit my web site i can tell all i know about Etiquette .... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.53.214.186 (talk) 03:53, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

That's just from wannabe Irish or "Plastic Paddy"s abused the "right-of-return" custom of the Irish diaspora when they travelled in or moved into Ireland to reconnect with their ethnic Irish roots. I'm unsure about the Irish law on accepting overseas Irish into the Irish society, like for anyone born to Irish-born parents in another country (esp. that's the case in the US or the UK like Northern Ireland or England) should be considered Irish to some extent. + 71.102.11.193 (talk) 22:30, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Spain

I verified a part about tipping in Spain and found it was noted incorrectly in the article. It said that tipping was common in Spain, and it is not. I referenced a source that I feel is reliable. Having traveled to Spain, I know that the material is correct. Ccid122907 (talk) 03:16, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to change anything, but I live in Spain, and somebody else ought to change this. I have no idea where the previous poster found information saying that restaurant owners might consider a tip to be an insult, and the tipper is never coming back.

Tipping is generally optional but NEVER insulting, and it's quite common. You don't have to tip 15% except at an expensive restaurant or if you are a large party; the wait staff is salaried and does not depend on your tips for their income. At a diner/snack-bar/cafe for a check of less than about €10, you can leave the change. At a €20-30 per person restaurant, a couple of euros is OK.

You don't have to tip cab drivers but a euro or two is fine if you want to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.33.158.121 (talk) 19:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

One important rule of etiquette is the Spanish do not like to admit they have Arab or Moorish ancestors, even there is a small amount of truth in the historic pretext of the Islamic period of much of the Iberian peninsula from 711 AD to about 1500 when the expulsion of the last Muslims from Spain occurred in Granada would stir emotional feelings in Morocco & North Africa. + 71.102.11.193 (talk) 23:57, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Serbia

In Serbia, leaving a glass full when one is done drinking is a traditional way to invite wealth and prosperity into a home.

Can somebody attest to this actually being true for where they live? I grew up in Vojvodina and if I learned one thing about leaving anything in your glass when you're done drinking it's that it invites bad luck for your host - quite the opposite of what is stated here. --87.116.138.177 (talk) 23:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Putting this up for deletion...

This has already been mentioned above, but nothing come out of it. This article blatantly violates WP:NOT on several counts, it's an indiscriminate, unsourced, unverifiable collection of guidebook-style information. The "facts" are completely random, often wrong and completely out of context as far as I can see. I've already added the "unencyclopedic" template.

I'm not saying that information about Etiquette cannot be encyclopaedic, but I can't see how this article would be justified. What little relevant information exists here can be easily integrated into the 'culture' section of the individual articles (about Europe or the individual countries). This would completely eliminate the need for this page.

As it is the article is used for people to dump random 'facts' about their country. This type of information could be suitable at Wikitravel, but its not suitable here.

If someone has an idea how to turn this into something remotely encyclopaedic, let us know. But remember that "it's fascinating and useful" is not a valid excuse to keep the page. Otherwise I'll put this page up for a deletion discussion pretty soon. Averell (talk) 10:37, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

• European ettiquette is an extremely notable topic and the proposition that it should be included in our encyclopedia seems absurd. The travel guide criticism is facile. For one thing, etiquette is of local interest to people who don't travel. And for another, the presentation is a matter of style and deleting the article would obviously not help with this. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say that information on Etiquette doesn't belong in an encyclopaedia. That's why I suggested to add the useful information elsewhere. But if European Etiquette is "extremely notable" by itself, this article utterly fails to demonstrate it. It even fails to demonstrate that a coherent thing like "European Etiquette" even exists. And yes, the travel guide criticism is facile - because its so true and such a blatant violation of WP:NOT - Wikipedia is not a guidebook.

Furthermore, my problems are not with the presentation, but with the content. Most of it doesn't belong in Wikipedia, no matter how you phrase it. The useful information that remains does - in my opinion - not warrant the article. The thing is that this article exists for over a year, and it continues to deteriorate.

But if you have any idea in how to turn this into something vaguely encyclopaedic, let us know. So far I have no idea, and no one has made a useful suggestion.

Let me repeat: Most of the article consists of facts like "Shaking hands while wearing gloves is widely considered impolite." (or similar info about, uhm, clinking glasses, gestures, ...). This kind of thing is not encyclopaedic, it's trivia. It doesn't belong here, no matter how it is phrase and no matter if it is sourced.

Relevant information would be: How and why was etiquette established, what role does it play in society, how did it change, etc. - and this kind of thing can very well be incorporated elsewhere. Averell (talk) 17:03, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• I am not eager to defend this article but I must point out that trivial and encyclopedic are not mutually exclusive terms. The matter of the gloves, for example, might have a place on Wikipedia if it was cited. I would like to see this article deleted but I think that's going to be challenging. Any arguements made for for deletion must be well-focused ones. - House of Scandal (talk) 19:39, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Obviousness?

the fact that public masturbation is a breech of etiquette is non-encyclopedic This was reverted by User:Boston. What do you think, is it? The function of etiquette is precisely to control "primitive behavior". These things are, surprisingly, not obvious. When comparing to ancient Rome, there has been a change of perceptions with respect to public sex and nudity. There is a history to this and it has to be covered somewhere. --Vuo (talk) 23:18, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

What is that to-and-fro editing? I put back the section on exposure, since it seems useful. The half-sentence about masturbation really doesn't seem encyclopaedic in this context, because it doesn't actually provide useful information to the reader. If you want to talk about the history of etiquette, please make a section for it and use it as an example. I also put the fact tag... Averell (talk) 18:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Reverted restore

I've reverted the revert of User:Colonel Warden to the Jan, 1st version. While restoring the intro was fine (and I kept that part), it also restored a few things that were justly deleted. Those things were empty sections and trivia that was sourced from a 1912 book. These things are neither relevant to this article, nor are they even part of contemporary etiquette. Averell (talk) 17:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Historical sources

People seem to use a lot of sources from the beginning of the 20th century, and even earlier. I don't know why, but while they're good to explain the history of etiquette, they shouldn't be used for statements about contemporary etiquette. Etiquette isn't a static thing, and many customs from earlier times seem strange today. Averell (talk) 18:12, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

But new laws, customs and etiquette develops in the 20th and 21st century. For example, is the 1923 Turkish law that made it a crime to insult "Turkishness" like to bring up the Armenian massacres by Ottoman Turkish troops during WWI is a strong taboo and the Turkish government officially denies or has a different version of the historical events that taken place. + 71.102.11.193 (talk) 00:24, 23 July 2010 (UTC) 00:24, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

wearing white running shoes

wearing white running shoes as an adult as your regular shoes is also considered inappropriate in europe, unless you are either a child or a rapper. Markthemac (talk) 01:14, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

You can remove Poland from this list, I live in Poland 35 years and never met with such a habit. Maybe it is in some odd community, do not know where the author was the guest. Marekgebski (talk) 11:56, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

French table manners

Minor or major faux-pas when one is in the dinner table in France is hands under the table (to place them on your lap), to switch the fork to your left hand (the continental style to handle tableware), and note french fried potatoes are eaten with tiny forks (this is seriously done) and refreshments are drunk from the glass only (important is to finish the entire alcoholic liquor drink, not waste abit to the drain). American tourists have admittedly failed to observe those customs in France, but the French may have to be tolerant of mistakes by foreigners or travellers, but the French insist on "out of towners" to follow the tip "When in Rome..." instead of "except Americans". + 71.102.11.193 (talk) 22:27, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

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Seems fairly obvious stuff...

I'm a 40 year old American and about 96% of this (made up percentage) is obvious to me, even stateside. The article should probably be expanded, or just folded into something else about etiquette? just a thought.

Mercster (talk) 11:35, 1 October 2017 (UTC)