Elegant and Genteel Speech

Here are some handy speech-etiquette tips from an 1894 book called Search Lights On Health - Light On Dark Corners, by Professor B.G. Jefferis of Chicago and by J.L. Nichols (who owned the publishing company that printed it).

The illustration is from this book, which is full of this sort of thing. Notice how everyone in the family is reading a magazine or newspaper - not a book. I suspect that Nichols mostly printed periodicals.

Furthermore, these people might want to consider improving their speech skills by actually conversing with each other.

The subtitle of later editions of the book was The Science of Eugenics. So there is some astonishing marital advice, too. We'll be getting to that in future posts! For now, here is a sample of the many etiquette hints in the book:

- Don't say pants for trousers.

-Don't say genteel for well-bred.

-Don't say gents for gentlemen.

-Don't say elegant to mean everything that pleases you.

-Don't sign your letter yours etc., but yours truly.

-Don't say them bonnets; say those bonnets.

-Don't use slangy words; they are vulgar.

-Don't say if I am not mistaken you are in the wrong; say if I mistake not.

If I mistake not, if you speak like this you will be perfectly elegant!