social graces

A “self-described Marxist from Long Island,” Fink was best known for “Social Graces,” a 1979 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in which black and white photos of wealthy New Yorkers were juxtaposed against shots of everyday life of families in Martins Creek, Fink’s longtime home.

Christopher, a young would-be novelist, has the social graces of a jackhammer.

Their linguistic skills, knowledge base and social graces will soon become flawless, endowed with perfect recall, competence, poise, reasoning abilities and intelligence.

Dear Miss Manners: I was raised in a world of social graces where you did not ask point-blank questions, except among family or very close friends.

However, that code was included in a “Customs and Courtesies” chapter that still promoted old-fashioned, and heavily gendered, social graces: “If a lady drops something, retrieve it for her.”