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Bad manners   /bæd mˈænərz/   Listen
Bad manners

noun
1.
Impoliteness resulting from ignorance.  Synonym: ill-breeding.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bad manners" Quotes from Famous Books



... members had been educated at English universities, and came home burning to upset old ways and teach their elders how to live. They broke away from the old clubs and started smaller and more exclusive circles among themselves, principally in the country. This was a period of bad manners. True to their English model, they considered it "good form" to be uncivil and to make no effort towards the general entertainment when in society. Not to speak more than a word or two during a dinner party to either of one's neighbors was the ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... Salmasius only because he provoked Milton to a learned outbreak of bad manners. There is something immortal even in the ill-temper of great men, and Dr. Price lives in modern memory chiefly because he moved Burke to declamatory rage. His Reflections on the French Revolution was an answer ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... hour later, as they walked back through the sweet loneliness of Springfield Avenue, North said: "You've forgotten something. You've forgotten that this is the day you were to tell me why you had the bad manners to laugh at me before you knew me. Now that we are engaged it's your duty to tell me if ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... into each other, and dotted with mobs of sheep, making pastoral music to a flock-owner's ear. Over this sort of ground we could canter gaily along, with "Hector," F——'s pet colley, keeping close to the heels of his master's horse,—for it is the worst of bad manners in a colley to look at a neighbour's sheep. The etiquette in passing through a strange run is for the dog to go on the off side of his master's horse, so that the sheep shall not even see him; and this ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... without womanhood, infancy without hope, want and woe, rage and wretchedness, disease and death; and, furthermore, in the trail of this venomous serpent can be found broken vows and broken hearts, bad manners and bad morals, bad words and bad actions, bad parents and bad children, a bad beginning and a bad end. Then surely intemperance is the crowning curse of American society; and as such the traffic is, as has been often said, ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... with her cousin the Colonel, it astonished Jenny to see Will Jackson go familiarly up as if to offer the same greeting. Remembering himself in an instant, he slunk back as he had done before, and took off his hat with a low bow. Colonel Wyndham, Jenny thought, looked rather offended at Jackson's bad manners, dismissing him by a nod, and calling one of his stable-men to see to him, while he took Mrs Jane into the house. Jenny felt once again that Millicent must have guessed rightly, and that Jackson had never been in service ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... on almost every point of any importance, and so, I expect—I may say I hope—you will differ. But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores. When he first came here he not unnaturally put people's backs up. He has no tact and no manners—I don't mean by that that he has bad manners—and he will not keep his opinions to himself. We nearly complained about him to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... their afternoon tramp. There was nothing morbid or anaemic about Sylvia. Every morning she pulled weights and swung Indian clubs with her windows open. A mischievous freshman who had thrown a snowball at Sylvia's heels, in the hope of seeing her jump, regretted his bad manners: Sylvia caught him in the ear with an unexpected return shot. A senior who observed the incident dealt in the lordly way of his kind with the offender. They called her "our co-ed" and "the boss girl" after that. The professor of ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... cross,' Franklin answered. 'My friend, James Otis of Massachusetts, complained of the fish one day at dinner when there was company at the table. Mrs. Otis frankly expressed her opinion of his bad manners. He was temperamental and himself a bit overworked. He made no answer, but in the grace which ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... up when I was at the Pitti before, but we now saw them all, and probably the finest collection of pictures in the world. The Raphaels, Rubens, Andrea del Sartos, and Salvators I liked the best. On Saturday evening went to Court and was presented to the Grand Duke, who is vulgar-looking and has bad manners; but the whole thing is rather handsome. Stopped at Siena to see the cathedral; very fine, the ancient fount beautiful. The mutilated Graces I am not connoisseur enough to appreciate, but the illuminated ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... his friends were applauding him in dumb show from the balcony, and when his partner asked who they were, he repudiated them altogether, and said he could not imagine, but that he guessed from their bad manners they were professional ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... cadging when not maurauding, tickles his vanity by fawning upon him as the visible source of steaks and bones; and partly because the graceless beast insults everybody else, harming as many as he dares. The dog is an encampment of fleas, and a reservoir of sinful smells. He is prone to bad manners as the sparks fly upward. He has no discrimination; his loyalty is given to the person that feeds him, be the same a blackguard or a murderer's mother. He fights for his master without regard to the justice of the quarrel—wherein he is no better than a patriot or a paid soldier. ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... parts dread of the unfamiliar and want of resource in its presence, for one part in them of genuine loyalty. Plasticity loves new moulds because it can fill them, but for a man of sluggish mind and bad manners there is decidedly no ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... followed, Rupert Meryton, by his pertinacity in asking the Invasion Secretary questions which had been answered by him on the previous day, and by his regard for the dignity of the House, as shown in his invariable comment, "Come, come—not quite the Gentleman," upon any display of bad manners opposite, established a clear right to a post in the subsequent Tariffadical Government. He had now been Under-Secretary for two years, and in this Bill his ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... you want a shilling for?" said the mother sharply, who had joined the group. "You ought not to have asked for anything, what bad manners you have! The weeds cost you nothing, and you ought to be much obliged to ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... world, and will criticise the magistracy, the noble, and the king if he is under the impression that you are only a merchant, while evil words enough would be at his command to represent the meanness and bad manners of the commercial classes, if his pony is honoured by being sat upon by a nobleman! Such is the world even in Cho-sen. The Mapu will sing to you, and crack jokes, and again will swear at you and your servants, and at nearly every Mapu that goes by. The greater the gentleman ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... added Peggy, who was busy putting a patch in Silvio's knickerbockers, "Guy Vyvian turned up out of nowhere and called this afternoon, bad manners to him for a waster. When he found you were out, Hilary, he asked where was Rhoda; he'd no notion of sitting down to listen to me talking. Rhoda was out at work too, of course; I told him it wasn't most of us could afford to play round in the afternoons the way he did. ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... he was really floating with the current; but as he neared me he suddenly pulled his boat towards me with such recklessness that I was afraid he would run into me. I considered his rowing into the cove to be a piece of bad manners, for of course it would spoil my fishing, but I had no idea he actually intended to lay alongside of me. This he did, however, and so awkwardly that his boat struck mine with such force that it half tipped it over. Then he lay hold of my ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton

... be seen together, hopping sociably about the garden, the thrush calling out a rather harsh note — puk! puk! — quite different from the liquid, mellow calls of the other thrushes, to resent either the sparrows' bad manners or the inquisitiveness of a human disturber of its peace. But this gregarious habit and neighborly visit end even before acquaintance fairly begins, and the thrushes are off for their nesting grounds in the pine woods of New ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... probably be called 'farmhouse bread,' although the great wheel or trencher-shaped loaves of the French provinces might cause some surprise there. My meal, therefore, might have been worse than it was, and as it was given to me for nothing, it would have been very bad manners not to appear pleased. The truth is, the novelty of my position—that of a tramp taken in and fed on charity—amused me so much that I found everything perfect. I had an idea 'at the back of the head' that I should find a way of ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... article on "Bad Manners Among Fish." We have ourselves noticed a tendency to ignore the old adage that fish, like little children, should be seen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various

... then," said Mrs. Polly graciously. "I have been told it is the height of bad manners to speak in a foreign language, if it is not understood by your companion, so I shall confine myself, when addressing you, to my mother tongue. And now, since you have told me your age, would you like to ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples

... traduction; if he was begotten a saint it was by equivocal generation, for the devil in the father is turned monk in the son, so his godliness is of the same parentage with good laws, both extracted out of bad manners, and would he alter the Scripture as he hath attempted the creed, he might vary the text and say to ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... to ladies was also delightful. Some of the gentlemen were guilty of bad manners, in the Surbiton sense of the word. That is to say, they did not all do what was "done," and they very frequently did things that were not "done" by Good People. But everything they did was inspired by a consideration for the comfort of others. They committed gaucheries, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... that had disturbed him. A Fox, who was looking on, thought he would have a joke at the expense of the Lion; so he said, "Well, this is the first time I've seen a Lion afraid of a Mouse." "Afraid of a Mouse?" said the Lion testily: "not I! It's his bad manners I ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... wait," assented Jose, again coming up unexpectedly behind them. "I but wish to say that I regret the bad manners of those caballeros, whose best excuse is that they are my friends. I hope the senor does not accuse me of spreading the news of the senor's boast. There are others, as the senor well knows, who heard it before even it came to ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... may, perhaps, have some effect while men are awake; but what arguments shall we use to the sleeper? What methods shall we take to hold open his eyes? Will he be moved by considerations of common civility? We know it is reckoned a point of very bad manners to sleep in private company, when, perhaps, the tedious impertinence of many talkers would render it at least as excusable as at the dullest sermon. Do they think it a small thing to watch four hours at a ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... Victorina, "some have very bad manners—and yet I thought that in Europe everybody was cultivated. But as it happens in France,—well, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... laws cannot reach. Society is infested with rude, restless, and frivolous persons who prey upon the rest. Bad manners are social inflictions which the magistrate cannot cure or defend you from, and which must be intrusted to the restraining force of custom. Familiar rules of behavior should be impressed on ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... show of yourself, you great tomboy! It is a pity that you can't keep your bad manners out of sight, before ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... him. Then, forgetting herself for a minute, she would look at Korostelev, and think: "Surely it must be dull to be a humble, obscure person, not remarkable in any way, especially with such a wrinkled face and bad manners!" ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... in the master takes from the horse his only chance of being brave; lack of steadiness makes him indirect and futile; lack of kindness frightens him into actions which are the result of terror at first, and which become vices only by mismanagement. By nature the horse is good. If he learns bad manners by associating with bad men, we ought to lay the blame where it belongs. A kind master will make a kind horse; and I have no respect for a man who has had the privilege of training a horse from colt-hood and has failed to turn out a good one. Lack of good sense, or cruelty, is at the root of these ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... send her a lovely black waist and a plum pudding for her Christmas. Tell her I was laid up with one of my bad heads.... No? You won't let me fib? Horrid old thing—come and kiss me!... Ah, you never refuse to kiss me, nice cave man with bad manners and muddy shoes, wanting to thump his strong dear fists on my little Chippendale tables—and grow so good and booky all in an instant. Forgets he was ever a bad pirate and robbed everyone until he could buy his Gorgeous Girl. Good-bye, story-book ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... of the Daisified Path. There were not only daisies all over the path but real violets on either side of it. The daisies looked one in the face, but the violets did not, because they had morbidly bad manners. Still of course manners are very small change and count for very little; the violet, being an artist, is entitled to any manners it likes, while the daisy has no temperament whatever, and no excuse for eccentricity. Grasshoppers ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... always be short and staccato. Instead, he sat here, and we talked about Fate and wounds and all sorts of direful things." She shook herself and shivered slightly. Then she sat down in the chair which Weldon had just left vacant. "It is bad manners to have nerves, Captain Frazer. Forgive me first, and then tell me something altogether flippant, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... young man following us as we came home?' asked Miss Pillby, with a disgusted air, as she shared an invigorating repast of bread and butter and toast and water with the pupils who had been to church. 'Some London shopman, no doubt, by his bad manners.' She stole a look at Ida, who flushed ever so slightly at hearing ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... my bad manners in listening to what you were saying, and also for breaking in upon your reverie. My excuse must be the great interest that your words had for me. Your opinions would appear to be exactly my own, too, and perhaps you will accept that as ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... shoved the sergeant aside. "Make way, here!" he bellowed. "Let these guards pass." With that, he almost hurled a gaily-dressed gentleman aside on either hand; they both turned to glare angrily, then got hastily out of his way. Meditating briefly on the uses of bad manners in an emergency, Trask followed, with the others; the big Space Viking plowed to the front, where Sesar Karvall and Rovard Grauffis and several others ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper

... me, and I was irritated, and thrown into confusion, too, every time I lifted my eyes, by the crushed, criminal expression of his face. He ate and drank hugely—and extremely bad manners it would have been regarded in me had I made as much noise as he, or lifted such quantities at a time into my mouth. But through his noisy gluttony he managed somehow to maintain that hang-dog air—like a thief who has gone through the house and, on his way out, has paused at the pantry, with ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... his own park, of a foundling girl and boy—not of his own production—whom he brings up; and it ends with a tedious description of how somebody founded the first petite maison in England—a worthy work indeed. It is also noteworthy for a piece of bad manners, which, one regrets to say, French writers have too often committed; lords and ladies of the best known names and titles in or near Crebillon's own day—such as Oxford, Suffolk, Pembroke—being introduced with the utmost nonchalance.[349] Our novelists have many faults to charge themselves with, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... while the King thundered out: "Who has the bad manners to sneeze in the King's presence?" Everybody looked at his neighbour, and wondered who did it. "Off with his head," ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke

... found herself in a conservatory that opened off a drawing-room, being divided from it only by a hanging Indian curtain; a hanged Indian curtain she used to call it ever afterwards; but that was bad grammar, and bad manners too." ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... out the lady, addressing her brother, "don't you agree with me that it is very bad manners on the part of the boys to come to supper without so much as washing their hands or brushing their hair? Ought they not to put on evening clothes now that they ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... hope," put in the parrot hastily. "That kind of a cat has such bad manners—far, far worse than the raccoon's—that it is not allowed round here at all. If it's a polite kind of a cat, go on, Miss; ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner

... Semyonov was strange. She was quite fearless, laughing at his temper, his sarcasm, rebuking his selfishness and bad manners, avoiding his coarse and unhesitating love-making, and above all, trusting him in the oddest way as though, in spite of his faults, she placed all her reliance on him and knew that he would not fail her. Nothing annoyed him more than her behaviour to ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... hurry to do this, however, and continued to astonish his family by going into society and coming out brilliantly in that line. It takes very little to make a lion, as everyone knows who has seen what poor specimens are patted and petted every year, in spite of their bad manners, foolish vagaries, and very feeble roaring. Mac did not want to be lionized and took it rather scornfully, which only added to the charm that people suddenly discovered about the nineteenth cousin of Thomas Campbell, ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... who were equally glad to see us. Seventeen men came out from the shadow of the governorate wall, and stood in line to shake hands—and that is a lengthy business, for it is bad manners to be the first to let go of an Arab's hand, so that tact is required as well as patience; but it was well worth while standing in the sun repeating the back-and-forth rigmarole of Arab greeting if that ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... rosy red. From the silence in the room she knew her guests were hearing what she said. "I beg your pardon," she explained, turning to Dorothy Morton, who was nearest her. "Please forgive my bad manners. We are so interested in our new protegee that I forget that ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane

... the evening, and the principal theme of conversation. Your unwonted situation has led you on to drink more than was advisable. For some time you have been feeling uncomfortable effects from your host's light, eager wine. To get up before the rest would be bad manners: to remain is perilous. The drinking is prolonged; subject upon subject is started, spectacle after spectacle is produced; for your host is determined that you shall see all he has to show. You suffer the torments of the damned. You see nothing ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... severely punished, sometimes by death.[1625] Many an A-Sande has lost a finger or his life for an innocent word spoken to the wife of a chief.[1626] The Tunguses of Siberia have so much habitual politeness that Wrangell called them "the French of the tundra."[1627] The Yakuts think it bad manners to give a big piece of meat to a poor guest and a little piece to a rich one. Good breeding, according to their code, calls for the opposite conduct.[1628] A Fuegian husband, giving an order to his wife, out of courtesy tells her to give the order to some one else, although there ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... nothing to discuss; but the grief it is to me to have offended you, you will never know. You can tell the others that this note confesses to you that I was suddenly overwhelmed with homesickness and felt I could not stay for argument. It will be the simple truth. They will set it down to my bad manners, and ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... attention to the conventionalities, and are seldom found consulting books on etiquette; but those who have been well brought up, and accustomed at home to an air of refinement, are quick to detect ill-breeding and bad manners in those older than themselves, and who "ought to know better." So it came about that Mr. Grice was unpopular, and the boys in his class bemoaned their fate, and ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... manifest by fine eyes and personal beauty, courage and endurance, and delicate behaviour, so the slave nature is manifested by cowardice, treachery, unbridled lust, bad manners, falsehood, and low physical traits. Slaves had, of course, no right either of honour, or life, or limb. Captive ladies are sent to a brothel; captive kings cruelly put to death. Born slaves were naturally still less considered, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... fun of themselves and their own bad manners. Annette is poor and has no father to stand by her, and I cannot entertain like some of their parents can, but Annette, with all her faults, is as good as any of them. Talk about the prejudice of the white ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... but I forgive your bad manners. I proceed in the true Christian spirit with my scheme. The middle house in the Upper Glen belongs, as you know well, to the great Duke of Ardshiel. It is sometimes called Ardshiel, but more often by the title The Palace of the Kings. Since the sad tragedy ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade

... our subjects on the sea, trade where they are forbidden to go, and fire upon our ships in your harbours. Your preachers insult my master from their pulpits, and when we remonstrate we are answered with menaces. We have borne so far with their injuries, attributing them rather to temper and bad manners than to deliberate purpose. But, seeing that no redress can be had, and that the same treatment of us continues, I must consult my Sovereign's pleasure. For the last time, I require your Majesty to punish this outrage at Plymouth ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... will reverse the proportions. Another difference is one for which women are responsible. In Paris a party of French men and women at a table in a good restaurant enjoy their food, laugh and talk with one another, and do not concern themselves with the company at other tables. It would be bad manners to do so. But English-speaking women, when dining in public, seem to be chiefly interested, not in their food nor in their own party, but in pointing out to one another the celebrities or notorieties or eccentricities seated at other tables. So long as the place is fashionable and noisy, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... and bad manners may affix to us the epithets of Romish and Papist and Ultramontane, but the calm, dispassionate mind, of whatever faith, all the world, over, knows us only by the name of Catholic. There is a power in this name and an enthusiasm aroused by it akin to the patriotism awakened ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... been bad manners to insist. Marguerite, with a little comprehensive nod to all her friends, left the young cavaliers still protesting and quickly passed beneath the roughly constructed doorway that ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... serious insult, only to be atoned for by the payment of goats. Even if under the new dispensation he wears European trousers, he must have a piece of goat's skin underneath. Married women wear a tail of strings behind." It is very bad manners for a woman to serve food to her husband without putting on this tail. (Sir H.H. Johnston, Uganda ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the omnibus would not permit. This rejoiced her much; but being a woman of experience, she continued a little anxious lest his sweet ways should go after his rags, lest his new garments should breed bumptiousness and bad manners. For such a change is no unfrequent result of prosperity. But such had been Mr. Porson's teaching and example, such Mrs. Person's management, and such the responsiveness of the boy's disposition, that the thought never ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... superiors. The mode of salutation upon entering or meeting anyone is as follows: They draw the body together and make a low reverence, raising one or both hands to the face, and placing them upon the cheeks; they next sit down waiting for the question that may be put to them, for it is considered bad manners to speak before one is spoken to. Their greatest courtesy is in their form of address; for they never speak to one as "thou," or in the second person, whether singular or plural, but always use the third person, saying for example—"Does the lord, or the chief, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... earth could take a fancy to the twins or keep them an hour longer than necessary, and you know it, Mrs. Grubb,' said Rhoda, who seldom minced matters; 'and in case no one should ever have the bad manners to tell you the whole truth, I want to say here and now that you neglect everything good and sensible and practical,—all the plain, simple duties that stare you directly in the face,—and waste yourself on matters that are of ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... my dear fellow," said Sir Hugh presently, lifting the sole of his boot to the fire, "you've got devilish bad manners. You are devilishly ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... away discouraged by the bad manners of M. de Pradt. The hero himself was thinking of a retreat, when Mme de Stael came to release him from the ambuscade into which he had fallen. She retained him near the door, and there was a grave conversation on the English constitution. Mme de Stael could not reconcile the idea of political ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various

... that I was too frail and delicate a human plant to be thrown in contact with those others of my kind who, in all probability, would play roughly, and have bad manners; they concluded, therefore, to keep me at home ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... understand their views and they cannot understand mine, they always come back to the real difficulty: "Ecoutez, chere amie, vous etes d'une autre race." I rather complained to W. after the first three or four dinners—it seemed to me bad manners, but he said no, I was the wife of a French political man, and every one took for granted I was interested in the conversation—certainly no one intended any rudeness. The first big dinner I went to that year was at the Elysee—the regular official dinner for the diplomatic corps and ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... whether Bazarov was attaining his object. It was difficult to conjecture from Anna Sergyevna's face what impression was being made on her; it retained the same expression, gracious and refined; her beautiful eyes were lighted up by attention, but by quiet attention. Bazarov's bad manners had impressed her unpleasantly for the first minutes of the visit like a bad smell or a discordant sound; but she saw at once that he was nervous, and that even flattered her. Nothing was repulsive to her but vulgarity, and no one could have accused Bazarov ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... churches, little placards plead with the worshipper against the fury of expectoration. Charles Dickens self-sacrificingly undertook the reformation of our American manners in unspeakable particulars. I think the lesson was not quite lost; that it held bad manners up, so that the churls could see the deformity. Unhappily, the book had its own deformities. It ought not to need to print in a reading room a caution to strangers not to speak loud; nor to persons who look over fine engravings, that they ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... bad manners rose straightway; and the minstrel, who (as often happened in those days) was jester likewise, made merry at his expense, and advised the company to turn the wild beast out ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... must be considered as not existing. And, of course, no offense is intended. But if there be any weak-kneed readers who prefer the gilt-wash of pretty politeness to the solid gold of truth, let them understand that I am not to be frightened away from plain facts by any charge of bad manners. ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... the youth of both sexes was not confined to the exhibition of bad manners, nor to the mere passive indulgence of an undutiful spirit. These led gradually to a more serious phase of the rebellion, the inauguration of a series of petty annoyances, to be followed, naturally, by acts ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... Farnsworth. The District Attorney of Scott County had a mustache which failed miserably to make him look like Tom Dewey; he impressed Rand as the sort of offensive little squirt who compensates for his general insignificance by bad manners and loud-mouthed self-assertion. Corporal Kavaalen, standing in the doorway of the shop, caught sight of Rand and his companion as they got out of the car and came to meet them, hustling them around ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... "minding their manners." Not only was there no snatching of food or exhibition of greediness, but there was a severe repression of any apparent eagerness for the tempting dainties, lest it should be suspected that such were unusual at home. Even the little boys felt that it would be bad manners to take a second piece of cake or pie unless specially pressed; but their eager, bulging eyes revealed only too plainly their heart's desire, and the kindly waiters knew their duty sufficiently to urge a second, third, and fourth supply of the toothsome currant or berry pie, ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor

... outlaw," said Dick; "a vicious old bull compelled to wander alone because of his bad manners. Still, it's likely that he's not the ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... got all you want, do you know of any better fun than lending a hand while some man you happen to like gets his? I don't. Of course, some fellows want too much, and it's bad manners as well as waste of time to inflict your opinion on them. But given a reasonable purpose and a friend who needs your assistance, is there any better sport on earth than risking your own neck to help ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... literary life, offers an admirable model of concentration and energy. Even where it is a case of obtuseness to other civilisations, at least as high but of a different type, the verdict cannot be wholly unfavourable. The Kingdom of Earth is to the thick-skinned, and bad manners have a distinct vital value. A man, too sensitive to the rights and the charms of others, is in grave danger of futility. Either he will become a dilettante, which is the French way, or he will take to drink and mystical ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... 'Bad manners in a host!' says Jasper. 'My company will be there before me! What will you bet that I don't find my ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... opportunity of battering at Lucien Levy-Coeur, head down: but he could never reach him. His enemy had an extraordinary skill, even when he was most obviously in the wrong, in carrying it off well: he would defend himself with a courtesy which showed up Christophe's bad manners. Christophe still spoke French very badly, interlarding it with slang, and often with very coarse expressions which he had picked up, and, like many foreigners, used wrongly, and he was incapable of ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... rule must needs obtain for some time to come. By none more pointedly than by the present Secretary of State for India when addressing his constituents at Arbroath on October 21, 1907, when he informed them that "India is perhaps the one country—bad manners, overbearing manners are very disagreeable in all countries—India is the only country where bad and overbearing manners are a political crime." Or, as a prominent Mohammedan in India very well said, "When the English govern from the heart they do it admirably; when they ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... know that the well-bred people on board do not like the Sibleys' noisy ways and bad manners. Now, you, my dear, are young and unused to this sort of life; so you cannot be too careful what you say and do, and with whom ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... later what it was that had taken away her appetite she added: "And isn't it absurd? Why shouldn't Mrs. Smith eat sugar on baked beans? It does not hurt me. I do not have to taste the sugar on the beans; but is it such an odd thing to do. It seems to me such bad manners that I just get ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call

... applied to his cousin and neighbour, might have a tendency to stick in his throat. Des Barres, who admired and loved the little gentleman, was sorry. He wanted to remind him how the old Comte d'Ombre was universally known for bad manners, stupidity, and violence. He would have liked to reason with him, too, on the subject of that cousin, and to point out kindly, as a friend, how Monsieur de Sainfoy had had absolutely no real and good excuse for going over to the Emperor. Nothing but ambition and worldiness could have led him into ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... spoiling in that crowd of Slavs and Yankees, people of no position probably in their own countries, with whom you permit her to associate? People nowadays are so imprudent about acquaintances! To be a foreigner is a passport into society. Just think what her poor mother would have said to the bad manners she is adopting from all parts of the globe? My poor, dear Adelaide! She was a genuine Frenchwoman of the old type; there are not many such left now. Ah!" continued Madame d'Argy, without any apparent connection with her subject, "Monsieur de Talbrun's mother, if he had one, would be truly ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... was Craig's wholly unexpected response. "Homely—at least insignificant. Bad color. Dull eyes. Bad manners. A poor specimen, even of this poor fashionable ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... has all the weakness and strength of personal vanity, and he thinks everything inferior that is foreign. Our manners, eyes, and modes of eating appear simply odious to him. He delights in retailing stories of the bad manners of Englishmen, describes them as "roaring out ohio to every one on the road," frightening the tea- house nymphs, kicking or slapping their coolies, stamping over white mats in muddy boots, acting generally like ill-bred Satyrs, exciting an ill-concealed hatred in simple country districts, and ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... Wharton devoted himself for a few minutes to his hostess, a little pushing woman, who confided to his apparently attentive ear a series of grievances as to the bad manners of the great ladies of their common party, and the general evil plight of Liberalism in London from the social point ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Caroline, "is surely not learning brusquerie and bad manners from that tiresome Miss Colwyn. What a very unlucky ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... to Yarmouth. Give up yacht, and decide to go to Switzerland instead. Find Yarmouth yacht-owners furious with Hickling's Lord of Bad Manners. Say "closing the Broads will ruin them." Very likely, but it'll help the foreign hotel-keeper. Glad to see they've started a "Norfolk Broads Protection Society," subscriptions to be sent to Lloyd's Bank. "I know a Bank"—and all lovers of natural scenery and popular rights ought to know it too, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various

... confused by the sudden fury which had invaded me, and now sullenly mortified by my own violence and bad manners, I stood with one hand resting on the banisters, forcing myself to look at Lana and take the punishment that her scornful eyes ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... cow-man was conceived in anarchy and educated in murder. Whatever romantic notions I may have had of the plains twenty-five years ago, they are lost to me now. The free-range stock-owner has no country and no God; nothing but a range that isn't his, and damned bad manners—begging pardon, Miss Wetherford. The sooner he dies the better for the State. He's a dirty, wasteful sloven, content to eat canned beans and drink canned milk in his rotten bad coffee; and nobody but an old crank like ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... little, and the time when I am capable of nothing; and the latter part is twice the length of the other. For sixteen hours of every day, far better had I be dead than living, so far as our own little insolence may judge. But I speak of it only to excuse bad manners, and perhaps I show worse by doing so. I shall not be able to see you again until to-morrow morning. Do not go; they will arrange all that. Send a note to Major Hockin by Stixon's boy. Stixon and Mrs. Price will see to your comfort, if those who are free from pain require ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... Jessamine were the only elderly persons who kept their ages secret. Indeed, Miss Jessamine never mentioned any one's age, or recalled the exact year in which anything had happened. She said that she had been taught that it was bad manners to do ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing

... about the most commonplace, matter-of-fact character that can be imagined. Fitz, as he lay half upon a heap of dry leaves and canes, opened his mouth very widely, yawned portentously and loudly, ending with, "Oh, dear me!" and a quickly-uttered correction of what seemed to him like bad manners: "I beg ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... conscientious devotion or experience will ever replace it; but there are fortunate people who seem never to grow old in this sense. It is always to be borne in mind that most of these patients are over-sensitive, refined, and educated women, for whom the clumsiness, or want of neatness, or bad manners, or immodesty of a nurse may be a sore and steadily-increasing trial. To be more or less isolated for two months in a room, with one constant attendant, however good, is hard enough for any one to endure; and certain quite small faults or defects in a nurse may make her a serious impediment ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell

... at the opera or in the concert hall is a kind of bad manners which cannot be sufficiently censured. In the same way, going out before the end, at unfitting times, and the use of fans in such a way as to disturb artists and those sitting near, should be avoided by cultivated ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann

... not to think much about it, anyway," she owned. "I couldn't believe what she did. But I couldn't go into it. I can't now. Don't you know, Rookie, there are things you can't talk about? It's bad manners." ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... received as a guest in a family it is the height of incivility and bad manners to criticise their mode of living, discuss the peculiarities of any member, or make unkind remarks in reference to a slight, real or fancied, or any negligence or oversight. Having eaten your hostess's salt, there is an ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... not blinded us to certain defects in the German character, any more than has your friendship for Americans closed your eyes to our defects. The bad manners of Germans are proverbial, not only among Americans, but all over the world; so much so that certain German writers, admitting that Germans as a nation are ill-mannered, have sought to find in this fact an explanation for the world-wide antagonism toward Germany's ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson

... excuse of bad manners, ill temper, and brutishness (for that is what it comes to) compels us to accept it from those adults among whom political and theological discussion does as a matter of fact lead to the drawing of knives and pistols, and ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... the fault of our individual critic is that he is the heir of the false theory and bad manners of the English school. The theory of that school has apparently been that almost any person of glib and lively expression is competent to write of almost any branch of polite literature; its manners are what we know. The American, whom it has largely formed, is by nature very glib and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... or a rich person, or a person who ordered one about...! until she died and was buried in the depths of the world, she would never give in to such a person or admit anything but their thievishness and ill-breeding. Bad manners to the like of them, said she, and might have sailed boisterously away upon an ocean of curses but that Mary turned her face closer to her breast and began ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... occasion to preach a short sermon upon bad manners in public places. But to its great surprise it was severely rebuked some time afterward by Cleopatra herself, who said, with some feeling, that she had two reasons for complaint. The first was, that her ancient friend the Easy Chair should place her in the pillory of its public animadversion; ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis

... seen or spoken to, a novelist and lecturer with record-breaking best sellers to his account. He once had some business dealings with our firm, and I attended to the details, thereby winning his cantankerous approval. He had very bad manners, of which he was totally unashamed, and very good morals, of which he was somewhat doubtful, as they didn't smack of genius; a notion that he was a superior sort of Sherlock Holmes, having the truffle-hound's flair for discovering and following up clews and unraveling mysteries, most of which ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... Mrs. Mellow shook her head. "I call it rare bad manners to ask a young lady to the house and then to leave her to entertain herself, as you may say. And I've told Master Tony so more ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... a race from original heathenism which has come through two hundred years of the darkness of slavery, set free in exceedingly unhelpful conditions, and shut in for the most part to association with illiteracy, bad manners, bad morals and bad habits. Only exceptionally can colored people come near enough to those who are high and good to get much good by seeing what goodness is and ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 44, No. 5, May 1890 • Various

... called us, woud have to go and git our seweral livings in a more manly employment! Of course boys will be boys, so we kindly forgave him, more specially as he stands six foot one in his stockings, let alone his boots. However he made up for his bad manners by singing with his capital voice, his new Song of "Old Robert the Waiter" being a rayther complementary Parody, as he called it, upon "Old Simon the Cellerer," which was receeved with emense aplause. So he gave, as an arncore, the Waiter's favrite Glee ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various

... severely: "Innocent tourists—relatively innocent ones, anyhow—are not likely to be favorably impressed with Darth!" He had the charging process going swiftly now. He began to charge a fourth weapon. "It's particularly bad manners," he added sternly, "to stand there grinding your teeth at me while your friend behind the desk crawls after an old-fashioned chemical gun to ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... advise you not to drink so early in the morning. It doesn't improve your naturally bad manners." ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... to pronounce us loose in manner, immodest in deportment, coarse and vulgar, where we are not understood. No girl can afford to wilfully bring upon herself the criticism of bad manners. She can afford to do right when she feels the world is wrong; but she is accountable for her example, and the influence she exerts upon those not as strong as she is. Beyond this lies the fact that womanliness is opposed to mannishness, and that unwomanliness ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... never disobeyed you before, little mistress, but this time I have an excellent reason for what must seem to you very bad manners—" and being a gentleman withal, Satan rose on his ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... banquet, they cheered the former engineer, John G. Stevens, and did not applaud Colonel Goethals when he appeared. However he was exceedingly polite and did not notice their bad manners. The men had expected to see him wear a full dress uniform, and you can imagine how surprised they were when they saw him dressed in citizens' clothes. Never once while he was in Panama did ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... of the affair, and the matter was reconciled upon the obligations that had previously existed, and a promise to report no violations of the ordinances during a specified time. Looking around, Dunn exclaimed, "Bad manners till ye, Swizer, what a' ye done with the little nager? Where did ye put him?—Be dad, Duse, he's gone beyant!" An ineffectual search was made among barrels and boxes, and up the old chimney. "Did ye see him?" inquired Dunn, of a yellow man that had been watching the affray ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... leave untouched the clothes of the actor, lest our own and their lack of style should be put forward as a ground for disqualification. Still it is impossible to avoid noticing the dresses of the ladies upon the stage; it would even be bad manners not to do so, seeing how much trouble the dear creatures take to please our eyes, for we are too gallant or vain to believe the cynical idea that they only dress to crush ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... of broad shoulders were touching mine. Turning quickly, I found myself looking into the face of the bearded Russian. His eyes were fastened on mine, an inquiring, rather surprised look on his face, as if he was wondering at the bad manners of a man who would thrust himself ahead of a royal personage. For an instant the features were calm and impassive, then as he continued to look at me there flashed out of his eyes a search-light glance that shot ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... forty years. It had not long been restored for the second time, when Frederick II of Prussia made a target of it in his siege of Prague. Some eight hundred hot shot are said to have struck this church and set it on fire more than fifty times: quite good shooting but bad manners. No wonder, then, that this Church of the Virgin and St. Charles has lost its pristine beauty; yet it has an attraction of its own to those who sympathize with its misfortunes, and there are still some quaint old corners of ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... if I were you, Giraffe,"' remarked Thad. "From the way the gentleman wrote to Dr. Hobbs I'm sure he thought he was doing us a favor; and you know it's bad manners to look a gift horse in the mouth. If he was charging us a round sum for the use of the boat we, might say something; but outside of the gasoline we consume we don't have ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter

... It is bad manners for a man to sit with his legs far apart or to expose all of his clout, or for a woman to sit on the floor with one leg drawn up. A person should not walk about while others are singing or dancing. Basi should never be drunk, until ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... power, but had to take care of the children after the incident. S. is either Republican or Democratic. Favors the former, although once in awhile he desires change. Wore a goatee, long hair, high hat, a suit made out of the flag, smoked cigarettes, had bad manners, and used much slang. Publications: Bank notes. Ambition: Another Republican president. Address: Washington, D. C., U. S. A. Epitaph: (If he ever gets one ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous

... and for this reason I have looked forward, through all the winter months, to the new district commander as a bringer of comfort and deliverance. His predecessor was an abominable combination of bad manners and still worse morals and, as though that were not enough, was always in financial straits. We have suffered under him all this time, Innstetten more than I, and when we heard early in April that Major von Crampas was here—for ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... Look up here, puppy! No! Don't try to lick my face, for that is bad manners. Demonstrations are ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... insinuation should be directed, and that she was singularly inaccessible to vulgar temptation. I added that notwithstanding her seeming lawlessness she was not only remarkably sensitive to any accusation of bad manners, but that upon certain matters she could not endure even a joke. The only quarrel I remember to have had with her was when I lapsed into some commonplace jest about her intimacy with a music-master ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... man be taught to understand good and bad manners and persons, and from thence apply his mind to the words and deeds which the poet decently assigns to either of them. For example, Achilles, though in some wrath, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... stop them! well, that's queer: it may stop a man drinking, because he can get no mote out of it. However, as you please, gentlemen; here's to drink my health, bad manners to you," said McShane, throwing the bottle over ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... patronus, and struggling with one another for the sportula is familiar to us in the pages of Juvenal and receives fresh and equally vivid illustration from Martial. The worst results of these unnatural relations were a general loss of independence of character and a lamentable growth of bad manners and cynical snobbery. The patron, owing to the increasingly heavy demands upon his purse, naturally tended to become close-fisted and stingy, the needy client too often was grasping and discontented. The patron, if he asked his client to dine, would regale him with food and drink of a coarser and ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... in using a gun," said the major: "either point the muzzle at the ground or up at the sky. It's considered bad manners, ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... but a short stay at school—not because he was tormented, for he thought it so fine to be at school at all that he held his tongue at home about the sufferings incurred through the medicine-bottle, but because his father thought he was learning bad manners. This he imparted to me in confidence at the time, and I remember how it increased my oppressive awe of Mr. Pickering, who had appeared to me in glimpses as a sort of high priest of the proprieties. Mr. Pickering was ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James

... who had not developed a white hair and whose Viennese maid was a magician in the matter of gowns and complexion, was enjoying life and had a daring salon; that is to say gatherings in which all the men did not wear uniforms nor prefix the sacred von. She drew the line at bad manners, but otherwise all (and of any nation) who had distinguished themselves, or possessed the priceless gift of personality, were welcome there; and although she lived to be amused and make up what she had lost ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton

... passages, especially our Lord's advice to the guests at an entertainment, (Luke iv. 7.) seem to extend the rule to what we call manners; which was both regular in point of consistency, and not so much beneath the dignity of our Lord's mission as may at first sight be supposed, for bad manners are bad morals. ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... Johnson before the Senate dragged through April and May. The articles of impeachment were long and detailed in their description of the unquestioned bad manners of the President, but the only specific violation of law cited was in the case of Stanton, and here it could be urged both that the law was unconstitutional and that it was so loosely drawn that it did not really cover this case. In brief, it was ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... notice of his bad manners, "get coffee," and she went, looking less displeased at his grimaces than I ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... with dirt, and having been stirred to unusual depths by the condition in which he found himself, he begged his master to let him take his sword, saying he felt he had to kill some of the pigs in order to be soothed. The exceedingly bad manners they had displayed and especially the fact that they had crushed all the provisions into nothingness, had produced an ire in ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... street cars and on the sidewalks, and impudent speeches everywhere marked generally the limit of rudeness. And the Negroes were, in this respect, perhaps no worse than those European immigrants who act upon the principle that bad manners are a ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming



Words linked to "Bad manners" :   ill-breeding, impoliteness



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