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This Saturday, it will have been 50 years since Emily Post, distinguished etiquette expert, passed away.

If her name doesn't sound familiar, you're not alone. In a recent Vanity Fair poll, 40 percent of 18-to-44-year-olds had no idea what Emily Post was known for, which left us wondering: Are her rules on etiquette still relevant?

We decided to revisit some of her advice to see if it still applied to a modern girl's life in 2010. Carrying bundles, returning house calls as a newlywed, writing letters, approaching a group of strangers at a party -- what of Post still matters today, and what seems antiquated and ridiculous?

To aid us in our quest, we decided to read "Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home," which is available to read online -- adorable, considering that it was published in 1922.

A lot of the topics she covers (including one long section on how to keep your fan, gloves and napkin on your lap at fancy dinner parties -- tsk tsk!) seem unimportant at best, but some still ring true. So, without further ado, here are some of the most relevant -- and some of the most laughable -- things Emily Post ever taught us.

Fashion
Post had strong opinions about style. For men, she recommended a variation of suits for everywhere except the "country," where a man should only wear breeches and polished leather riding boots. Sounds dreamy to those of who date men surgically attached to their hoodies.

But her thoughts on female style are much more relevant. It was her belief that most women were fashion sheep -- either they dressed "quietly" and faded into the background, or they dressed so trendily that they all looked exactly the same. She encouraged ladies to take the trends and personalize them. In other words, "Those whom the fashion suits are 'smart,' but they are seldom, if ever, distinguished, because -- they are all precisely alike." Keep that in mind, insane hipsters -- if everyone dresses exactly like Elaine Benes from "Seinfeld," everyone looks ridiculous.

Weddings
I don't know about you ladies, but while planning my nuptials, my mother would constantly intone these bizarre rules to me about invitations and gift tables and flowers, as if invoking some oracle ... and my wedding was a hybrid Muslim ceremony in a house. That oracle was all Emily Post. While her advice on wedding etiquette might be a bit outdated, her advice on the most important ingredient in a ceremony still holds up: "No other quality of a bride's expression is so beautiful as radiance; that visible proof of perfect happiness which endears its possessor to all beholders and gives to the simplest little wedding complete beauty."


Conversation Skills
Post had lots to say about how people should interact with each other, and after digging through all the complicated stuff about when to doff a hat or curtsy, her basic advice is sound. She encourages people to think about whether or not what they have to say will be interesting to the people around them. Don't repeat yourself; let other people talk; don't veer into controversial topics; and don't pretend to know more than you do. "To say you have read a book and then seemingly to understand nothing of what you have read, proves you a half-wit. Only the very small mind hesitates to say 'I don't know.'" Amen! She also has words for 1920s New Yorkers that may, ahem, still apply: "It is mortifyingly true; no one is so ignorantly indifferent to everything outside his or her own personal concern as the socially fashionable New Yorker, unless it is the Londoner!"

At a Live Performance
"Etiquette in Society" has lots of rules about arriving at a theater performance, whether or not it's OK for a woman to attend with a man who is not her husband (spoiler alert: it isn't), how to dress at the theater, etc., but her two biggest lessons were to shut up and to be on time. "If Mary and Johnny and Susy and Tommy want to talk and giggle, why not arrange chairs in rows for them in a drawing-room, turn on a phonograph as an accompaniment and let them sit there and chatter! ... Nothing is more unfair to others who are keen about whatever it is you are going to see, than to make them miss the beginning of a performance through your thoughtless selfishness." We couldn't have said it better, Emily.

Introductions
Emily Post loved all the formalities that went along with meeting new people and addressing them properly. "The younger person is always presented to the older or more distinguished, but a gentleman is always presented to a lady, even though he is an old gentleman of great distinction and the lady a mere slip of a girl." Duly noted. Many chapters are spent arranging people in a hierarchy of how they should be presented to each other, and then detailing how to give each person a calling card so that they may contact you again. It's rare these days that I meet someone whom I don't already know in some capacity online, and rarer still that I have to ask someone how to contact her. How horrified Ms. Post would have been at me, saying, "I've seen your YouTube videos! Are we friends already on Facebook?" to someone I've just met at a party. Such is the modern age.

Dating
Very little is discussed about actual courtship, whereas engagement parties and wedding etiquette are given two full chapters. What a difference from now, when we are all more concerned with getting to know a person before deciding to marry them. The huge effort put into the ceremony and ritual is now being put into the actual relationship, which is a wonderful change. Back then, an unmarried girl was to have a chaperone if she even thought about talking to an unmarried man, there solely to protect the girl from any danger or wagging tongues. Modern girls, Post admits, have taken to hanging out in co-ed groups, all acting as chaperones for each other. This is okay with her, but once a couple decides they want to marry, "it is the immediate duty of the man to go to the girl's father or her guardian, and ask his consent. If her father refuses, the engagement cannot exist." If we lived by these rules, daytime talk shows wouldn't exist.

Mustn't
Emily Post is full of "mustn'ts." "A lady mustn't carry a bundle of anything on the streets, but if she has to, a man must carry it for her. A fat woman mustn't wear light-colored or tailored clothes. If a man doesn't enjoy the conversation a lady has offered, a woman mustn't be offended, but rather keep fishing for topics he might find agreeable. A woman must never lean on anything -- she must sit with "her hands relaxed in her lap, her knees together, or if crossed, her foot must not be thrust forward so as to leave a space between the heel and her other ankle." We might have lost some formality over the years, but thank god, we've also lost the crippling sense of always doing something wrong.

Houses
This section seemed the most outdated to me, and is the strongest hint that etiquette might have been a luxury that only the rich could afford. Houses were to be stocked with the most lavish items possible, with no furnishings or decor around merely for sentimental value ("We would not have to be told of their hideousness were they seen by us in the house of another"). A house must have servants on hand to collect a visitor's things when they visit, but if you are not rich enough to employ help, no worry! "The fact that you live in a house with two servants, or in an apartment with only one, need not imply that your house lacks charm or even distinction...." Whew, thanks for the reassurance! People entertained at home much more back then, and while the idea of hosting a social salon sounds charming, I would much rather have a comfy home where friends feel okay about stopping by, eating a burrito, and gossiping while watching a bad movie.

It's easy to make fun of hoity-toity 1920s society, but the fact remains that Emily Post has been a household fixture for 80 years for a reason. She set the rules for the rest of us to aspire to, and in doing so, she took a lot of the guesswork out of awkward social interactions. We could probably use her for modern awkward situations, like changing relationship statuses on Facebook, handling that friend that always gets trashed and expects you to care for her, the over-sharing Tweeter, etc. and so on. There will always be a need for social graces, and Emily Post's most basic rule, never do anything that is unpleasant to others, is just as necessary today as it was back then.


Emily Gordon is a Lemondrop contributor, blogger and journalist who lives in Los Angeles. She has impeccable manners.