Twentieth Century Culture and Deportment / Or the Lady and Gentleman at Home and Abroad; Containing Rules of Etiquette for All Occasions, Including Calls; Invitations; Parties; Weddings; Receptions; Dinners and Teas; Etiquette of the Street; Public Places, Etc., Etc. Forming a Complete Guide to Self-Culture; the Art of Dressing Well; Conversation; Courtship; Etiquette for Children; Letter-Writing; Artistic Home and Interior Decorations, Etc.

by Maud C. Cooke

Functions.

The practice of calling the ordinary reception, ball, party or dinner a “function” is simply a bad habit. It comes to us from England, where a confusion of ideas has made this word the popular synonym for any social happening. The error in England is perhaps pardonable, for the reason that very many of the society performances there are actually functions, and in course of time the unlearned and the careless have come to call every society performance a function. The royal “drawing-rooms” (so-called) are functions, and the Lord Mayor’s dinner is a function—in fine, that is a function which is “a course of action peculiarly pertaining to any public office in church or state.”

The receptions and dinners which, in his official capacity as President of the World’s Fair, Mr. Higinbotham gave were functions. But the receptions, dinners, high teas, given by people holding no official position whatsoever, do not partake of the nature of “functions.”