Etiquette | featured news

I come from a divorced family, and so does my husband. Every year on Thanksgiving, we wonder: Of the four sets of parents, which one should we take our kids to visit this year? (All live nearby, which makes the decision even more challenging.) We try to be careful with our choice, but it's tricky, and we have inadvertently caused offense in the past. How can we avoid upsetting any of our loved ones this time around?

A polite act shows respect. But a new study of a common etiquette -- holding a door for someone -- suggests that courtesy may have a more practical, though unconscious, shared motivation: to reduce the work for those involved. The new research is among the first to combine two fields of study ordinarily considered unrelated: altruism and motor control.

Trick-or-treaters beware: Manners count - even on Halloween. Britain's authority on etiquette, Debrett's, issued its first guidance Wednesday on how to behave during the uber-American holiday.