Judith Martin

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President George W. Bush and Laura Bush stand with 2005 National Humanities Medal recipient Judith Martin.

Judith Martin (born Judith Perlman on September 13, 1938), better known by the pen name Miss Manners, is an American journalist, novelist, and etiquette authority.

Since 1978 she has written an advice column, which is distributed three times a week by United Features Syndicate and carried in more than 200 newspapers worldwide. In it, she answers etiquette questions contributed by her readers and writes short essays on problems of manners, or clarifies the essential qualities of politeness. Martin writes about the ideas and intentions underpinning seemingly simple rules, providing a complex and advanced perspective, which she refers to as "heavy etiquette theory". Her columns, noted for their wit, humor, depth of analysis, and broad knowledge of history and customs and their applications to the problems of today, are collected in a number of books.

In a 1995 interview by Virginia Shea, Miss Manners said, "You can deny all you want that there is etiquette, and a lot of people do in everyday life. But if you behave in a way that offends the people you're trying to deal with, they will stop dealing with you...There are plenty of people who say, 'We don't care about etiquette, but we can't stand the way so-and-so behaves, and we don't want him around!' Etiquette doesn't have the great sanctions that the law has. But the main sanction we do have is in not dealing with these people and isolating them because their behavior is unbearable."

Before she began the advice column, she was a journalist, covering social events at the White House and the embassies, before becoming a theater and film critic. Martin is a graduate of Wellesley College. She lived in various foreign capitals as a child, as her father, a United Nations economist, was frequently transferred. She was born and spent a significant amount of her childhood in Washington, D.C., where she still lives and works.

Martin was the recipient of a 2005 National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush.

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Books

Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: From Sexual Harassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing and Other Lapses in Civility
Miss Manners on Weddings
Miss Manners on Painfully Proper Weddings
Common Courtesy: In Which Miss Manners Solves the Problem That Baffled Mr. Jefferson
Miss Manners' Guide to the Turn-of-the-Millennium
Miss Manners' Basic Training: Communication
Miss Manners' Basic Training: The Right Thing To Say
Miss Manners' Basic Training: Eating
Miss Manners' Guide to Rearing Perfect Children
Star-Spangled Manners