Reflections on life, meaning and purpose

6 popular rules of etiquette explained: Why ‘no problem’ is a problem, why salt and pepper travel together, and why the ‘Dutch reach’ is a good idea worldwide…

The catalog of social graces is constantly growing and changing to reflect the world we live in. Yet for every self-explanatory etiquette principle (silence your phone at the movies), there’s another seemingly arbitrary one (men should escort women on the left). While these “rules” may seem old-fashioned and are often broken in today’s society, they were once the guidelines for proper manners. We took the courtesy of demystifying six of them.