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Mind your manners

Ways with napkins

Make sure that you wait until the hostess lays out her napkin first.
If the napkin is too large, fold it and make sure that the folded edge is towards your waist.
If the meal is served buffet style, and you need to help yourself again, ensure that the napkin is not left on the table but on the arm rest of the chair,
After you have finished, never fold your napkin. Hold it loosely from the centre and place it near your side plate.

Using cutlery

Never hold the cutlery from the skirting. Make sure that the edge is towards the centre of your palm, and the index finger is towards the skirting. But it should never go beyond it.
To finish your meal, leave your cutlery at the six o'clock position or at an angle with the fork facing upwards, and the cutting edge of the knife towards the fork.
When resting, leave the cutlery in the inverted V position.
Finally, if you are a left-handed person, never be ashamed to switch your cutlery to your strong hand.
At a cocktail, always hold the glass in your left hand.

By Thiruni Kelegama
All over the world, twenty-four hours a day, every day, companies have to deal with the fact that their clients are only human and as such, their loyalties are fickle.

No matter how good a product is, the deciding factor for any worthwhile client comes down to the crux that is service.

It's that all encompassing impression you make on them every time, that will get them coming back for more. And it is in creating that 'all-encompassing impression' that Dila Hettiaratchy comes in. She believes that the way to create that 'impression' is through etiquette.

"Paying attention to every detail and practising proper etiquette makes every encounter memorable..." she says. "It also creates a foundation for a comfortable, lasting and mutually profitable relationship."

Business etiquette is her specialty, along with excellent customer service, the key to profitable and long term relationships.

So what is business etiquette?

Etiquette means 'socially accepted behaviour' or simply 'good old fashioned manners'.

"A good look around any work environment would show that most people are rude, ill-mannered and inconsiderate... and in this era of rapid advancement, the need is even greater for us to have that added social savvy, just to give that much needed edge."

"Etiquette is remarkably important. It is surprising how little we think it matters to us, but a person can very well judge you by the way you sit and keep your hands together," Dila explains.

"Most people believe that etiquette is a myth and that it is not of consequence. But that is not true. We should strive for etiquette excellence and work on establishing an impressive image," she adds.

Having worked in Sri Lankan Airlines, where she started as a member of the cabin crew and ended up as the Inflight (Cabin Crew) Training Manager for Safety and Training where she was responsible for training about 750-cabin crew, Dila knows what she is talking about.

"Etiquette has always interested me. I have sometimes been ashamed of the way we Sri Lankans represent ourselves in foreign countries, and I always strove to learn the correct manner of doing things," she explains.

"I guess, it was more of a fancy..." she adds laughing. "After I left the airline, I embarked on this career of training people in business etiquette and customer service. I have done segments, training the corporate sector in grooming frontline staff, telephone etiquette, presentation skills, interview skills and even how to function at social encounters related to work."

"For me, the greatest challenge is to be able to train people to give the right service; a 'service experience' unforgettable for both the client and the service provider," she adds.

"Yes, cultural parameters are very important," she explains. "Supposing you were in the Middle East, a burp after a hearty meal is a must.

It would prove to your host that you have enjoyed your meal, whereas a burp in many other countries would be considered something to be ashamed of."

It is the same with handshakes, Dila adds. In Germany, a strong handshake would reveal that you have a very strong personality. It is the same in the United States and most other European countries, where a handshake is almost a part of their culture.

"But in Japan, never expect a strong handshake!"

she explained that the Japanese do a fleeting handshake that reveals their delicate and soft nature. "For them, bowing is part of their culture, never a handshake."

Everything has a protocol of its own. It is this attitude Dila takes when making people aware of etiquette.

"This is how a lady is expected to sit...." she says as she angles her legs to the left and crosses her ankles delicately.

"If you really cannot manage to do so," she continues, "you could always adopt the legs together policy with your feet flat on the ground." Needless to say, that did seem a little more practical.

"Never should men put their legs up and cross their legs over their knees. Showing the sole of their shoe only proves that they are arrogant," she adds with a huge smile. Of course, the ideal gentleman would always hold the car door or any other door for that matter - open for you, and make sure that you are in front, but rarely does it happen now.

"My daughter Dineka is also instrumental in my personal and professional success," she says. "She makes sure that I keep to what I teach and though I do get annoyed with her, I finally realise that she is right. It is this policy I now keep to when I teach others about etiquette - it is not something to be applied only when needed, it has to be a part of your life."

At the end of the day, it all depends on the impression you strive to create, and it is this very impression which will take you to greater heights, insists Dila.

Tissa Devendra discusses how the Sri Lankan elite transformed English spelling into
Something rich and strange
As a one-time student of English, (long ago in another century), I have been interested, intrigued and amused at the subtlety with which the Sinhalese 'elite' transformed English spelling into something rich and strange - as an indicator of social status, totally absent in the phonetic Sinhala spelling of the very same names.

Old families
In 19th century Ceylon, our British rulers favoured the spelling 'oo' to indicate a specific Sinhala sound - which can be seen in the names of old estates such as Lab-oo-kellie. It is thus a fair conclusion that family namesspelt , for example, as G-oo-newardene or G-oo-netilleke originally belonged to families that began writing their names in 'English' (i.e. Roman script) in the 19th century.

This pattern can also be seen in name endings spelt 'wardene', 'tilleke', 'naike'. Note the 'e' ending. Invariably these families tended to be Christian as well, for the simple reason that the British favoured English competent natives of that faith.

It would not be far wrong to conclude that most of those who thus spell their names descend from families who became Anglophone in the 19th century and were probably Christian at that time.

By the 20th century, the spread of English education in Ceylon produced a host of not-so-elite families who preferred the example of the 'new' spelling of the British who (for reasons unknown) decided to drop the use of 'oo' and replace it with the less phonetic 'u'. As a result, in the English Telephone Directory G-u-newardenas, G-u-natilakas and others who spelt their names with 'a' endings (29pgs), far outnumber their 'oo' namesakes with the 'e' ending (3pgs). Sadly, for social upmanship, these strange signals automatically disappear in a Sinhala Directory.

The C factor
I now venture deeper into the more dangerous quicksands of caste, creed and (yes) colour where English competent Sinhalese twisted the English alphabet to make it a marker of caste. The Portuguese Perez is spelt Pie'ris, Pei'ris, Pei'ries, or Pee'ris, though spelt and pronounced only in one way in Sinhala.

But the manufactured variant English spellings are zealously protected by their protagonists as recognised markers of caste identity. Amusingly, castes too are referred to by the shorthand of the English initial of the Sinhala name for each caste!

The Portuguese Sous(z)a has been phonetically adapted as Soysa in Sinhala. The subtle (English speaking) Sinhalese have worked out a canny formula to indicate caste by the injection of the letter Z, (totally non-existent in the Sinhala alphabet), into the English spelling of this name.

Some families possessing other Portuguese names that proved to be popular among several castes took to hyphenating their name with the original (i.e. pre-Portuguese family name) as an unmistakable marker of caste.

The most distinguished example of this practice is Dias-Bandaranaike.

The B factor

Faced with the massive adoption (exploitation?) of Portuguese, and other European names, by the ever-so-adaptable Sinhalese, the Burghers fought a rearguard action using the alphabet to which they had a hereditary right. Their main weapons were the absolutely non-Sinhala letters F and Z. The most popular Portuguese names among the Sinhalese are Perera (75 pgs Tel. Dir) and de Silva (22).

The Burghers reclaimed the plebeian/Sinhala 'misspelling' of Perera by the insertion of an I thus transforming it into Pere-I-ra and flagging their European ancestry. Another version went yet further and dropped the P altogether and substituted it with F thus becoming F-ere-I-ras - unmistakably Burgher.

In the Phone Directory, only one descendant of the Portuguese spells his name in the correct way as da Silva (as does the leading candidate in the Brazilian presidential election, Lula da Silva). Most Sinhalese spell their names as de Silva or, plain and simple, Silva.

The Burgher reconstruction (reclamation?) of this European name used the good old non-Sinhala letter Z - thus distinctly marking Zilwas and de Zilwas as clan members.

However, there has been one amusing transformation where an exaggerated bow to phonetic accuracy has led to the well-known Scottish name McCleod being spelt Macklawood!!

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