Etiquette: The Least You Need to Know and Afternoon Tea Etiquette.

In today's video, I'm gonna address 10 etiquette mistakes that I often encounter.

I'm gonna mention each and every one of them and then tell you why you shouldn't be doing that.

Common etiquette mistake number one is not thanking the gift giver on time.

A lot of people are faulty of this.

They often forget to thank the giver on time or even at all.

It's important to make sure that as soon as you receive the gift, that you are able to see the gift,

that you write to the giver, "Thank you, I've received your gift."

Even if you still haven't had the chance to open the gift and see what's inside, once you know that the gift has arrived, you have to write the giver.

Let them know that you've received it and then follow up with another message once you've unpacked the gift to say "Thank you for this particular gift that you've given."

And then, note the good things about the gift or how thoughtful the giver was to consider that while giving it to you.

Common etiquette mistake number two is responding to thank you with no problem.

A lot of people are doing this mistake.

It's something that we have recently incorporated into our daily vocabulary to respond to a thank you with a no problem.

It used to be just "You're welcome," or "It's my pleasure," which is the correct way to answer.

Because think about it, when you respond to a thank you with a no problem, it assumes that whatever the person has asked you to do was actually a burden.

It assumes that whatever the person has asked you to do was actually a burden.

It was a problem.

So now they're acknowledging that it's not a problem for them.

That's why it's important to always stick to the old ways of responding.

That is "You're welcome," or just simply, "It was a pleasure for me," or "A pleasure was all mine. "

Common etiquette mistake number three is greeting elder people or people that you don't know with a simple hey.

I've seen this been done on the streets. I've seen this done and messages, emails, even for social media platforms.

You have to make sure that you address someone you don't know for the first time or someone who's older than you with a hi or hello.

Do not use the word hey. It's not appropriate for someone who's older or for someone that you don't personally know.

The fourth common etiquette mistake that can lead to a lot of uncomfortable situations is when a man extends his hand for a handshake towards a woman in a social setting first.

And I want to emphasize the word social setting.

Because in a social setting, the priority is always given to females,

so women have more authority to decide where to sit and they get the best view and they get to decide whether or not they want to handshake a man.

In that case, in a social setting, always wait for a woman to extend her hand first.

If you don't wait for that, a man, you being a man, extend your hand first towards a woman, she might not respond to it at all.

And your hand is gonna be just hanging there, which is not gonna make you feel comfortable at all.

Or you put the woman in an uncomfortable situation where she has to respond, but she's not really willing to do so.

In business etiquette, however, gender doesn't play any role.

It's the rank, the position that you occupy that will determine who needs to extend the hand to whom first.

Common etiquette mistake number five is when you are sneezing into the palm of your right hand.

So when you just hold yourself like that and you sneeze like that, it's not right.

It's impolite, it is not hygienic because usually we use our right hand to extend for a handshake.

Therefore, the likelihood of you transferring your germs to someone else is a lot higher.

What you have to do is either sneeze into the elbow of your hand like that.

Or you can use the left palm of your, the upper palm of your hand like that and you should turn away your head away from the person you're talking to when you need to sneeze.

So if you need to sneeze, just apologize and do like that and cover your mouth.

Common etiquette mistake number six is using your fingers to point at people that you're talking about.

Let's say you're at a meeting and you need to say that I don't know, "Anna raised this point,"

and you're just using your finger to point like Anna and someone else and then someone else were referring to people.

It is very rude in a lot of cultures to point at people using your finger.

So instead, what you have to do is use your full hand to gesture towards the person.

So say "Anna said this," and then "John said this," instead of using your fingers to point at people.

Common etiquette mistake number seven is mispronouncing or misspelling someone's name.

This looks so obvious and it seems like why would anyone misspell or mispronounce someone's name, especially when they can see the name?

But I assure you, I get tons of emails where people have misspelled my name.

And either, you know they've addressed me as Jammy or Jamelia, or people see how I sign off my name in an email and then still address me in the wrong way.

I think it means that people don't pay attention to your name, which is something that's so disrespectful towards the person that you're addressing.

So make sure to double-check that you are actually using the person's name to spell it when you are writing to them as well as capitalize the first letter, obviously.

I can't just tell you how many emails I get with my name with a small letter in it.

I think it's so disrespectful towards the person and then immediately, it just throws you off and you don't take the email seriously that much.

So pay attention to the way you spell someone's name because every person loves their name and loves to hear their name actually.

And when you are addressing someone in person, make sure you pronounce it correctly.

And if you don't know how to pronounce, it's okay to ask.

"Could you please help me?"

"Could you tell me how is the right way to pronounce someone's, your name?"

And I assure you, the person will prefer that you ask that question instead of using a wrong name or mispronounced name throughout the whole conversation.

Common etiquette mistake number eight is once you have picked up your utensils and ate something, those utensils that have been used can never go back on a tablecloth.

You have to make sure that they remain on your plate either like that, if you're taking a break.

Or if you have finished, you'll just place them in this position.

Or then again, you can switch and use into this position.

But once they have touched the food, they have to remain on the plate.

Never put them back on a table cloth.

Common etiquette mistake number nine is picking up the wrong glass.

I have seen this done so many times at different parties, birthday celebrations where people confused after, you know,

they stand, they stood up, they danced, they came back to their seat, and they confused which of these two are actually their glass.

So in order not to confuse that, you need to remember this rule.

Visualize in your mind. You can train yourself to do it at home, and then, when you're out, you can just do it in your head.

So this is your left hand.

And if you do a circle like that, it represents a letter B.

And if you put your fingers like that in your right hand, it's gonna represent a letter D.

So the letter D stands for your drinks and the letter B stands for your butter and bread.

So when you have mentally done this image, you will know that your drink glasses, everything that you're drinking, all the glasses will be placed on the right hand side.

So once you take a seat, you will know visually okay this is where it has to be and this is my glass.

So don't reach out to take the glass of the person who seated next to you.

Common mistake number ten and the final one for this video is holding your pinky out when you're drinking a cup of tea.

It seems like we already know it and we have already talked about it so so many times.

But recently, I was watching a video on YouTube, Architectural Digest was visiting the home of Tommy Hilfiger.

And the last episode or the last scene was where his wife and him were enjoying a cup of tea and she tells him to put his pinky out and that was the right way of drinking tea.

I will let you watch this part of the video and we'll come back to discuss some more.

And no, you have to have it.

Your pinky has... - Ding.

Ding the pinky up is the proper... That's right. Let's see, a little more angle.

There you go.

Good and then sip.

Perfect.

So the right way of holding the teacup, is pinching your index finger and you thumb through this handle,

then using your middle finger as a support, and then your ring finger and your pinky is tucked inwards like that so you're holding the teacup just like this.

There's no need to extend your pinky.

If this is something that you enjoyed looking at some common etiquette mistakes, please do let me know down in the comment section below.

If you would like to see a series of these videos and I'll be more than happy to shoot new ones for you.

Thank you for your attention and I'll see you in my next video.

Bye.