The Etiquette of Conversation

[Guest guest]

The four basic concepts of properly initiating and sustaining a conversation are: Compliment Others; Ask After Others; Lean Towards Positive Words And Comments; and Smile (demurely being the preferred smile as pronounced smiles are garish).

Not every spoken wrong or inaccuracy requires that you address it and set it right. While doing so may make you perfectly right or appear to be perfectly knowledgeable on a subject, it also reveals you to be perfectly petty and boorish. There are some fights that do not merit our engaging in them, much less winning them. This, of course, does not apply to the impugning of our reputations, or the reputations of friends unable to defend themselves.

Unsolicited advice is not to be offered, and flattery is to be avoided as it makes the flatterer identifiable with the flattery - empty and false.

Raven