Tucked in the bookshelves of my grandparent’s living room sits a book entitled The Standard Book on Etiquette, printed in 1948. A chapter in the book is Teen-Age Etiquette. It is comical and yet informative. Here is an excerpt:

There is probably no one in the world who needs to know the conventions and proprieties more than a teen-age boy or girl. Of course the teen-agers themselves would be the last to admit it. They would, in fact, scoff at the very idea of etiquette.

But have you ever seen anything more pathetic than a teen-age boy on his first date trying to act completely adult and sophisticated . . . and not knowing quite how?

Have you ever watched a teenage girl getting ready for her first big “formal,” wondering what to wear and how to act, and hoping she’ll make the right impression?

No- they don’t give a hoot about behavior, these bright young moderns. But when they start dating, going to parties, and coming smack up against the proprieties–that’s when the agony begins! That’s when they want to know exactly what to do, say, write and wear, that’s when they want to be, in their own colorful and characteristic phrase, “in the groove.”