Ahoy, Polloi!

VOGUE'S BOOK OF ETIQUETTE (658 pp.) --M/7//cen/ Fenwick--Simon & Schusfer ($5).

Buckram-bound, lead-heavy, but never slaphappy, Vogue's contribution to democratic amity makes Emily Post look like an aborigine. Four years in the making (by a Vogue associate editor), it pronounces the last, unquestionable Word on subjects ranging from table manners and cookery to the knottier intricacies of proper behavior for divorcees and the correct way to address a letter to an Archimandrite of the Greek Orthodox Church ("The Very Reverend Archimandrite"). Cold-toned, it tries to sell etiquette purely as a civic virtue. "Think of ball games," raps Author Fenwick (who obviously never does) "without a conventional seating system. Whenever egos touch . . . common sense demands a system. [Etiquette] is essential to the amenities of civilized life."

Vogue's Book is sure to worm its way into the shelves (or secret drawers) of many a home, because it caters to the social yearnings of all classes--from the sportsman who needs to know what kind of mourning is appropriate to driven-bird shooting (a black arm band on a tweed coat) to the unfortunate who still needs to be told that "oil is mispronounced 'erl.' " Some of it is what the whole book imagines itself to be: plain common sense and practical advice. But there is also a great deal of pedantic nonsense whose prissiness would drive a climbing Milquetoast to despair, as he struggled always to say "telephone" (instead of "phone") and "whiskey and soda" (instead of "highball"). "TOMATO," says Author Fenwick firmly, "is better pronounced 'to-mah-to,' as ... it comes from the Spanish Toma-te,' which is pronounced 'tomahtay.'' This is a much hotter potato* than Author Fenwick seems to realize.

Guided by Author Fenwick's inflexible hand, the common man may well proceed to great rewards. The chief reward: being safe from snubs. Author Fenwick deplores "fake fireplaces filled with a fake coal fire, lighted by electricity," deprecates "a shawl on the piano" and " 'popup' cigarette boxes , . . decorated with a scotty or a nude." But she shows that her judgment has less to do with taste than with fashion when she advocates "tables made of old painted tin trays on a modern stretcher base" and "odd saucers of Lowestoft china ... as ashtrays."

"The antisocial man is irresponsible and ill-bred," snaps Author Fenwick, i.e., at funerals he grins cheerily at his fellow mourners; at weddings he actually shows "unrestrained gaiety." He cannot stand in a queue without "sneaking up to a higher place," or walk out of his apartment house without dropping his butts in the hallway (instead of in the Lowestoft). All the same, he strikes the reader as a more attractive man than he will be after he has let Vogue lighten his darkness.

* From the Taino word batata, pronounced bah-tah-tah.

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