Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1898 — Origin of “Etiquette.” [ARTICLE]

Origin of “Etiquette.”

In French the word etiquette means simply a label, and its origin in the sense that it is used now dates hack to touts XIV. He had employed a doughty Scotch gardener to lay out the grounds at Versailles. The courtiers wandered all over his smoothly made lawns, and it worried him till he complained to the king. He told the gardener to place sticks with labels on them directing the offenders to walk inly on the paths indicated between them. “Walk between the etiquettes” was the word that went round, and It is easy to see how the meaning has broadened.