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| Sunday, 17 July 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Your
manners, matter
by Thileni Wickramaratne What better way to prune your manners than polishing yourself at a finishing school!
Yes this is one of the things one learns at a finishing school. Usually a finishing school focuses on developing a range of academic and social skills. Programs typically include subjects such as language communication inter-personal skills, etiquette, social skills and also home management, cooking, floral art, table decoration and the list goes on. A finishing school targets on developing your first impression and cultivating your personality into a more prim and petite mould. Your manners are the first things people notice about you. The way you talk, your style, your grace, your posture and the way you handshake with others is definitely judged unconsciously by all around you. Manners connect a person with other people. It is therefore the view of a certain segment that a finishing school flourishes these relational skills in you. A person who lacks the art of communication would be given the necessary training at a finishing school with the correct mode of eye-contact, the art of listening and all the rest. One would even get the necessary training with regard to interviewing a person and have half the battle won before much is spoken. It is a matter of preparing you, or rather as many would call it pampers you for the surprises that society has in store for you. There is a large amount of cynicism targeted at finishing schools. Much scorn is thrown at them as etiquette lessons would be the last on the list of a person who is constantly leading a fast - paced life. But of course, even people of royalty consider going to a finishing school as one of the accomplishments. Diana, Princess of Wales attended "Institute videmanette" in Switzerland and Camilla Parker Bowles attended " Mon Fertile" in Switzerland as well. Have you noticed a proper aura and charisma around these two women. Well, if you have, it's the effect of the courses they took at their respective finishing schools! Even the little and the simplest things that we tend to ignore in life are focused and taught impractically at an etiquette institute. For instance, would you hold the door open to a person ? or would you just let the door slam behind you on a person's face ? Do you know how to decipher the dress code and be in appropriate attire when invited to various occasions? Well, it seems there are different types of traditional dress codes like casual, professional, cocktail, formal, black tie, white tie and the list ranges furthermore to smart and casual, cozy and festive and yes are you getting dizzy ? Cracking these dress codes may appear gibberish to many of us, and mind you, it is important that one does not look the odd man out by being improperly clad and have all eyes averted to you. Etiquette schools did not flower out of the blue. There is a history behind etiquette and it is this history that put the foundation for the initiation of finishing schools. Etiquette originally stemmed from the Greeks. Clinking glasses during a toast was believed by the ancient Greeks to "hear" how the senses were stimulated when they drank their wine. Today, shaking hands is more of a hearty greeting, of course in the old days when two soldiers would hold each other's elbow, it is checking for hidden weapons. But do you know in a social situation when a woman meets a man, who has the prerogative to extend the hand first ? Well, as always ladies first. So these are things that are telescoped upon by an etiquette institute. But of course the ultimate goal of going to a finishing school is not for your own benefit, it is to make one's guests and audience feel happy and comfortable. So all the non-cynics, if you desperately need a powerful personal savvy to impress people and add little fringes of grace to your personality just like royal ladies did, then go to a finishing school, period. |
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