21. Eating with your elbows on the table
If you want to seem more polite in an instant, make sure your elbows aren’t resting on the table when you’re eating. However, in between courses, go ahead and rest them to your heart’s content. “If the salad comes and we’re eating, no elbows on the table,” asks Thomas. “Once the wait staff takes it away, we can rest our elbows on the table until the next course comes.”
So, why is this considered a mistake in the first place? Thomas says that, because meals were once considered formal events, the slouched posture that goes along with resting your elbows on the table was looked at as overly casual, and, as such, rude.
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