by Mita Q. Sison Duque

THERE has not been a more powerful phrase in diplomacy or etiquette than the French responde sil vous plait, R.S.V.P., or in English business language, please reply. For therein lies the core of communications to insure a full understanding of issues involved to establish peace between peoples, and eventually, nations. In more ways than one, the French had a hand in bringing about peace early on. For it is quite important that a simple courtesy of responding politely to inquiries and invitations, bring about communications and peaceful co-existence.

Why a French phrase to an English speaking world? It can be said with confidence that the French coined a phrase, or even invented a phrase that is most necessary to modern civilization, revealing what was to be a necessary tool in diplomacy. The rules of courtesy in modern civilization or ‘etiquette’ first accepted in the west and today around the world, found its roots in the behavior among nobility in the 16th century. Many of the practices came from the French Court of Louis XIV in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In his palace in Versailles, Louis XIV had rules for court behavior written on what was referred to a ‘tickets’ or ‘etiquette’. The rules of etiquette were printed at the back of the tickets and the tickets were posted at Versailles or were used as invitations issued to court events. Other versions are given by experts on the origin of etiquette, but the French origin is the most accepted version.

These early issue known as tickets, and the signages posted on walls, are precursors of future accepted cultural behavior of the civilized human race, whether they be in casual society or in the more formal echelons of government, diplomatic corps or high society… Despite such credited claims naming France as the birthplace of etiquette, it was an Italian diplomat who wrote the first book on etiquette reporting on the expected behavior among nobility in the 16th century. Nonetheless, French being the language of refinement in high society through the 19th century in the United States, a contemporary author and columnist of etiquette, American Judith Martin more popularly known as Miss Manners, thinks that RSVP came about as a polite way to remind people to respond with a reply should an invitation be extended for whatever purpose, and where necessary response is expected as a matter of courtesy, a consideration reminiscent of the behavior in the court of King Louis XIV of France in earlier times.