When I started out teaching English to adults here in France, I remember very well reminding my students when writing letters always to put their own address in the top right-hand corner (I think). But after 25 years in this racket followed by 15 years in which I found myself writing countless letters in French, I am no longer sure where to put my address. Not that it matters very much since no-one writes letters any more!
In the same vein, I have somewhere at the back of my mind a definition of what constitutes a "gentleman". "A gentleman", I recall, "is someone who never unwittingly gives offence". As with so many sayings and principles one learns at a young age, I never questioned the truth of this definition. But just recently I have begun to wonder whether I have remembered correctly. Does this mean that a gentleman is someone who sometimes wittingly or deliberately gives offence? Sounds more like Jonathan Ross to me.
Perhaps the definition is "someone who never wittingly gives offence", but in that case the gentleman stands revealed as a well-meaning dolt - not exactly the image we wish to promote. Could it be that the original expression was "someone who never willingly gives offence"? I really don't know.
There is actually another definition, supplied by Jonathan Miller in Beyond the Fringe. In old railway carriages, passengers visiting the toilets were greeted by the following definition: "Gentlemen lift the seat".
Here again, I don't suppose it matters very much as there are no gentlemen to be found nowadays, present company excepted of course.
And what does the gentleman do when entering a restaurant?
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Anon. What does he do when entering a restaurant, apart from opening the door, that is?
ReplyDeleteIn the Wikipedia article on Gentlemen, you will find:
ReplyDeleteNo attribution-
...one may quote the old story, told by some—very improbably—of James II, of the monarch who replied to a lady petitioning him to make her son a gentleman, "I could make him a nobleman, but God Almighty could not make him a gentleman".
Robert E Lee-
"The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.
The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly — the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light.
The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He can not only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others."
An altogether different Anon says:
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing here but might he return the lavatory seat he "lifted" on the occasion of his last visit to the restaurant?
Do you know, until your comment I had never thought of that interpretation of "Gentlemen lift the seat"!
ReplyDeleteBut how would I have smuggled the seat out of the restaurant? I would have had to pay the bill beforehand, of course, and then hope there was a back exit leading straight to the car park for a speedy getaway.