Be Nonchalant

Are you now, or have you ever been, a teen-ager perplexed by an array of silverware or by the problem of what to do with a finger bowl?

In his just-published book, Tiffany's Table Manners for Teen-Agers (94 pp.; Ives Washburn, Inc.; $3), Tiffany Board Chairman Walter Hoving offers comforting advice. "Be nonchalant," says he. If you choose the wrong fork or knife, don't fidget, keep eating. Sip soup from the side of the spoon or from the end--it makes no difference. Asparagus may be eaten with the fingers, as may artichokes and corn on the cob (exception: chicken). The finger bowl? Don't ponder its use; just remove it until time to dip fingertips. Other items:

> "You may rest your elbows on the table when you're not eating."

> "It is perfectly proper to talk with the knife and fork in your hands but do not gesticulate with the fork or the knife."

>"If you find some gristle or a piece of meat you cannot swallow, don't spit it out on your plate . . . Place it on the prongs of your fork, then place it on the rim of your plate. Don't let this embarrass you. It is perfectly correct."

> "If you knock over your water glass, don't say 'Oops.' Right the glass and keep talking to your partner. But if you spill the water on your partner's dress, offer her your napkin and say you're sorry. Don't start mopping her. It might be misunderstood."

Author Hoving's permissiveness extends to the debatable question of the continental versus the "zigzag" (American) system of knife-and-forkery; Hoving, like Social Mannerists Post and Vanderbilt, endorses the continental form (right hand for the knife, left for the fork, and no switching between bites), ends on a promising note. "When you know the rules," says Hoving, "you can start breaking them."

In another new book, The Intelligent Parents' Guide to Teen-Agers (228 pp.; Paul S. Eriksson, Inc.; $3.95), Author Thelma C. Purtell, a Manhattan-based housewife with a Midwestern upbringing, quotes an old hand on an old problem: "Our youth now loves luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect for older people. Children nowadays are tyrants. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers." The author, Mrs. Purtell points out with undisguised glee, is Socrates, and the time some 2,400 years ago.

"What has changed," writes Mrs. Purtell, "is the feeling of adult responsibility [which makes parents try] to find the reasons behind so many of the actions which alarm them." In her briskly written, though not startlingly new, account of parents' problems and ways to solve them, Author Purtell deals with such phenomena as going steady, parties, the adolescent revolution, and the adolescent and alcohol. Like Tiffany's Hoving, Parent Purtell advises nonchalance and an understanding hand with the kids. Parents, she says, "should stop torturing themselves."

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