Lizzie Post: Emily Post’s Legacy, Modern Manners & "Higher" Etiquette

[00:00:00] Welcome to Plot Twist Radio, the show where creativity, storytelling, and the unpredictable path of the creative life all collide. I'm your host, Erin Egnatz. Lizzie Posts Hi Lizzie, welcome to Plot Twist Radio. Hi, thanks so much for having me here. It's great to have you. Before we get going, can you introduce yourself to the audience? Lizzie Posts

[00:00:30] Lizzie Posts Wedding Stories. Emily was my great-great-grandmother, and I really love my job. We get to talk about really how people can treat each other well and be aware of their impact on others wherever we are, whether that's with our families, our friends in business or out in our communities. So I feel very lucky to have this job. Lizzie Posts Yes, it sounds really fun too. What was it like growing up with Emily Posts as part of your family history?

[00:01:24] Lizzie Posts at the, you know, at their house for dinner. And she had taken me into the dining room and the pizzas were set out. And she said, go ahead and get started. And I'm going to go grab, you know, a glass of milk or a glass of soda or something like that. And so I grabbed a piece of pizza and no one else was there yet. And her dad came in and was like, what are you doing? Why are you starting when nobody else is here? Aren't you Emily Post's granddaughter or something like that?

[00:01:51] Don't you know better? And it was like, I was mortified. Like, I mean, shaming a 12 year old for like her family background felt very uncomfortable. Like I did not know what to do with that. And I just said, I was really sorry. He said, we say grace in this house. And then they proceeded to say grace in German, which I didn't speak and didn't know about this tradition in their family at all. And my friend was pretty mortified. So it lives in infamy in our minds

[00:02:16] this moment. But other than that, it was never held over my head. My post side of the family was always really relaxed and fun. I think I learned more direct manners. Like, you know, we say yes, granny, and we say hello, not hey, granny from my other grandmother on my mom's side of the family. So but my mom always made it fun. She would tell us to put our napkins in our laps by saying, sink your sails because they were like little triangles, you know, and it was just she, you know,

[00:02:45] she would she would play act a lot of formal etiquette so that we understood how to do it. But she also let us know it wasn't it didn't have to be a part of our everyday life. And so that's kind of what it was like for me. Very cool. And I have to say, I would be mortified too. If that happened to me, that would kill me. That would literally scar me for life. Well, I have I've literally gone on to tell that story like at least 100 times in my professional life. So I think it did scar me for life. There you go. But you're building on it.

[00:03:15] That's good. There you go. Emily first published etiquette in 1922. So a lot of time has passed. What has changed dramatically? And what surprisingly hasn't changed at all? Do you think as far as etiquette goes? I love this question. Communication styles have changed dramatically. Formality, while we still have formal situations, it does not happen in everyday life as much as it used to. I think

[00:03:41] the way we dress is much more casual, the way we speak, the way we introduce ourselves. I know that I often only know someone's first name years into a relationship with them, don't know their last name. They're in my phone as, you know, like Ted from whatever, not like Ted and his last name. And so I think that's really different that we're on such an immediate first name basis that we don't use titles and last names as a default, even though that is technically still the correct and proper

[00:04:11] thing to do if you're ever looking for it. But some of the stuff that changes the least table manners, the fork is still on the left, the knives, then the spoons on the right, the glass on the right, the bread plate on the left. We pass, you know, in the same direction. Those sort of things have been remarkably steady and consistent over the last hundred and four or five years now. Yeah.

[00:04:34] Yeah, that's that's very interesting. Great answer. This is one thing I'm actually curious about because I grew up in the South, so I had the Southern manners. But then when I became 10, my dad moved this up to Chicago. Very, very different world. And the idea of etiquette is a little different. What do you think about politeness? Do you think there's ever a point where being too polite becomes a problem?

[00:05:00] I think that politeness really is how you wield it. It really matters if you're just doing it to be fake. And it's really the way that you're you think you have to act, but there's no genuineness behind it. I think that comes across as insincere. And I think that starts to feel rude to people. You know, a fake smile when you say something that you really don't mean is pretty obvious. And I think

[00:05:27] there are ways to be benevolent with the truth without being brutally honest with someone. There are ways of saying I'm, you know, there are ways of not saying the negative thing, but not also being just just lying in order to be polite. And so I think that's that's a really big, important thing that we need to think about is that politeness isn't just like a fake smile that you put on and

[00:05:53] words that you say just to say. There has to be some authenticity to it for it to really work and build the relationship. And that's something we talk a lot about in our business etiquette seminars, that our goal is to build relationships. It's not to just use manners and politeness as a facade to check a box. You know what I mean? Yes, absolutely. So let's pivot a little bit to the writing. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:06:21] Yeah, I never thought that I would be a writer in my life. It's been a really fun career. It turns out I really enjoy writing a manuscript, taking it through to design edits and seeing the finished product. It's a wild experience because you're writing it usually a year or two before it's ever going to be seen by the public. And so as soon as it's being seen by the public, it's almost old no matter what you do. And that's always a little bit frustrating. My book, Higher Etiquette, was

[00:06:48] actually the shortest, like the quickest book I've ever, the fastest book. How do I want to say that? It's the book I wrote the fastest where I did four months of research and then six months of writing. And then it was it was produced basically a year after the research had started. It hit the printers. And that was pretty darn fast. We have since taken our we love the experience of writing Higher Etiquette

[00:07:11] with 10 Speed. And so we decided to move from one publisher to another. And much like Taylor Swift, we had to rewrite everything from scratch in order to avoid those copyright infringements. And so that was actually the first time in the history of the Emily Post editions of Etiquette that we took a book and rewrote it from scratch, not just building off of what was there before.

[00:07:36] There have been plenty of editions that have been, you know, heavily re-edited and reworked. And the, you know, the the 2017 edition is very different from the 1945 edition or even the 1985 edition. But this was a complete start from scratch, strip out all the excess stuff, focus on what really matters. And for me, it felt like the biggest test of my career. Like, you don't go to like etiquette

[00:08:06] certification school to do this job. Like, you know what I mean? There is no actual official thing that qualifies me to talk about this other than that I've spent a lot of time in the field, a lot of time with the subject. And writing the 1922 edition, which we call the centennial edition because it represented a hundred years, that was my big test. And I wasn't allowed to be looking at our older books when I wrote this so that I didn't, my lawyer was like, don't just like go from scratch.

[00:08:35] Everything will be good. You know, you can edit, you can edit, you can edit. But if you start actually pulling sections from those other works, it's going to be copyright infringement. So that was a big lesson. But that went really well. The book is beautiful. Huge kudos to 10 Speed. I asked them to please let's let's try and use the original font from the 1922 book. Let's bring back that gorgeous blue, the style. Let's make these books you would be really proud to have on your shelf, keep for a

[00:09:03] long time and pass down to someone. They nailed it. They actually created the old font from scratch. And I was just blown away. And so we did it again with our business etiquette book. And I am literally this weekend putting the final edit on the wedding etiquette book, which is going to be out in February of 2027. And that book I'm really excited for. I can imagine. You know, I've been on TikTok a lot lately because who isn't, right? Exactly. I am not. But yes, I know everybody else's. I feel

[00:09:32] very like out of touch with the world. It's probably the best thing you could do is to stay away from it, honestly, because I get stuck in it. I'll just like start scrolling. I'm in everybody's drama. You know, I got married almost 20 years ago, but I somehow I have ended up on the wedding side and everybody's talking about the do's and don'ts and there's so much drama. So I'm very interested in that. What was it like writing, you know, about weddings and whatnot?

[00:09:58] I thought it was going to be the worst experience. And I say that because I am I am not married myself. I have had a lot of drama around the weddings that I have participated in. I've lost friendships over weddings. And that was deeply painful, like experiences in my life. So I actually put this one off in the in the rewrites for as long as I could. And when it came time, I decided I was going to interview married couples about their wedding and interview them whether they were in their 40s or

[00:10:27] 50s or 60s or whether they had just been married a few months ago. I really wanted to hear from people who were in the trenches. What was it like for you? What was meaningful about it? What do you think about it looking back? What do you think about the money that was spent or who was hosting all these kinds of questions? Those interviews completely changed how I looked at weddings. I fell in love with weddings all over again. I feel like it's a space that I'm so excited about at this point.

[00:10:56] Those interviews and those couples were just they were joyful and they were funny and they had such great advice and perspective as married couples, not as couples who were in the midst of planning and who hadn't been through the big day or experienced the catastrophe or the letdown or the you know, the joy of it or the the nostalgia of looking back. And it was an amazing experience.

[00:11:20] Those I did 40 of those interviews and they were so good that we actually have turned them into a podcast. That's the Emily Post Wedding Stories podcast. And so if you want to be on it, we would love to hear your story from 20 years ago. I will share it day in and day out. I I'm writing the nostalgia. We got married at Disney World. So you know, I'm like, I haven't done one of those yet. That would be such a fun interview. Oh, no pressure. But that would be amazing.

[00:11:48] I'd love to. I could go on and on. People are always like, okay, it's in the past. Let it go. I gladly do it. Space to enjoy that that past. Awesome. I love that. Before I let you go, though, I really want to touch on higher etiquette because totally unexpected. I love it. I love it. So tell us a little bit about that. Yeah. The stoner side of me finally got to come out to the world, which did feel quite like a coming out.

[00:12:13] I've always been a fan of cannabis. I actually have now taken a hiatus from it. So it is kind of funny to have this book out there. But for me, it it helped me a lot with social situations and with sort of calming a very overactive brain. And I loved that it was a part of my life. But it wasn't until legalization came around that we could really talk about it from an Emily Post perspective. So

[00:12:40] when states like Colorado were starting to legalize, I did a few interviews that were really fun. They went really well. People were blown away that we were willing to talk about the subject and what bong etiquette was and puff puff pass and everything. And, you know, making sure people get freshies and all that stuff. And it was really fun. Definitely the most fun research I have ever gotten to do in my life. I mean, I went to the legalized states. Vermont was in the process of legalizing while I was

[00:13:08] researching. So we weren't quite there yet. So I did have to travel in order to engage with just societies where it's legal and it's an option, whether you participate in it or not. At your dinner party, someone may, you know, show up high. They may want to smoke while they're there. How do you handle that? If you're uncomfortable with it, how do you handle it? If it's something you want to offer to guests, how do you offer it without making them feel awkward if they don't

[00:13:34] imbibe? So it was really fun looking at all those social situations. Weed at Weddings was a part of the book. And so it was it was it was just blast. It was it was fun to share all the lingo. It's the only book we have that has a science section in it that really talks about how cannabis works with the brain to help people understand the difference between taking that gummy and just taking a single hit off a joint. You know what I mean? Why they can impact you so incredibly

[00:14:04] differently. And I was very pleased that our publisher let us put all that in the book. They stopped me at how to actually roll a joint, which is something I do really enjoy doing. But I know they were like, they can look that up on the Internet. And I was like, they can look all of this up on the Internet. Like, come on. But but I listened to my editor. But it was really fun. I loved Sam Calda's illustrations that he did for the book. I think they are darling and I still enjoy them to this day. They have staying power. I don't feel

[00:14:33] like they look like one particular moment in time. I could keep going. Feel free to interrupt or something. No, please do. I as a smoker. Smoker. Yeah. We're in the same position. Yeah. Yeah. I love that it's out there. I love that it's out there. And you were so right about the difference between a gummy and a puff. Oh, my goodness. That was a shock. You know, when once legalization came around, you know, us old schoolers when, you know, when you're in high

[00:15:00] school and everybody, you know, makes it in their house, you know, it's it's fine. But the real stuff will really get you. Figure that out the hard way. But I love that. I love that you took that step because I think that it's really important. A lot of people use it for health care. I have for I have rheumatoid arthritis. It helps. It really helps. So I think that it's great that you're bridging that because a lot of people still look at it as we looked at it, you know, in the 70s and 80s and whatnot. Is it this horrible taboo thing? So that's fantastic that you

[00:15:28] approached that subject. I love it. Thank you. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Our big book, I will say, was written in an era where, you know, it was the big debate between using the word cannabis versus using the word marijuana versus using the word weed and the stigmas around the different words. And there was a lot of emphasis in the book around breaking down the stigma of being a stoner and even saying that like I say it proudly. I say it, you know, with

[00:15:58] with a smile on my face. But I think that there's a lot of people for whom that word even feel felt at that time very negative and very associated with living in your mom's basement with Cheetos covered over you and like only ever listening to the Grateful Dead. I don't like it. There's so many more versions of it. And I think that was one of the really exciting things about that era,

[00:16:22] sort of 2017, just to write around the pandemic was really having all the styles of cannabis use come out and having everybody feel like this was a space they could participate in and connect to and that it didn't have to be so stigmatized. So I was hoping that the book really helped with that. But who knows? So where can the audience find you, your podcast and the books?

[00:16:48] Yeah, our podcast, Both Awesome Etiquette, which is a weekly Q&A etiquette show about modern manners. So you can write in with your questions and Emily Post wedding stories, which we are taking new couples. So if anybody wants to share their wedding story, I would love to interview you, fill out our form. It's in the show description. We you can find us on all the major platforms, Apple, Spotify, any podcast, any podcast platform, you will find our shows on it. You can also go to

[00:17:13] emilypost.com to find more about us. And we have a sub stack, the Emily Post etiquette. So just emilypost.substack.com. So I kind of feel like we're we're in all the spaces. And we actually our social media is not as great as you might anticipate. We're not on X. We're not on TikTok. You can find us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, though. Perfect. Well, you know, I use LinkedIn for work and I use Instagram. Instagram and I don't post on anything else, honestly.

[00:17:39] Yeah, you know, it's otherwise it's like a 24 hour job. I feel like it is. It is. And I feel like leaving me behind. So I'm just like, whatever. Well, we'll see how this goes. But thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it. Thank you. I really appreciate it. So fun to get to chat with you and explore the world of publishing a bit more.