{"id":2322,"date":"2011-11-16T03:30:35","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T11:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=2322"},"modified":"2012-12-02T20:01:46","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T04:01:46","slug":"what-r-s-v-p-stands-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/11\/what-r-s-v-p-stands-for\/","title":{"rendered":"What R.S.V.P. Stands For"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pf-content\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/wedding-invitation-rsvp.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2367\" title=\"RSVP\" src=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/wedding-invitation-rsvp-e1283818765131.jpg\" alt=\"RSVP\" width=\"340\" height=\"247\" \/><\/a><a href='http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com' title='Interesting Facts'>Today I found out<\/a> what R.S.V.P. stands for, namely <em>R\u00e9pondez S&#8217;il Vous Pla\u00eet<\/em>, which translates roughly as &#8220;please reply&#8221; or &#8220;reply if it pleases you&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>So how did R.S.V.P.\u00a0 make its way into being used for wedding invitations and the like?\u00a0 This dates all the way back to around the 11th century when French became the fashion among the elite of the English court.\u00a0 This continued in England for several hundred years.\u00a0 It was also the fashion in the United States, among high society, to use French as the language of refinement up until around the 19th century.\u00a0 From this, many such similarly themed French phrases and words made their way into English, another example being the word &#8220;etiquette&#8221; itself.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, the French themselves don&#8217;t usually use R.S.V.P. anymore, more typically using <em>Pri\u00e8re de R\u00e9pondre<\/em> these days.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"bonusfacts\">Bonus<\/span> Facts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A new trend sweeping the invitation world is to not ask for an R.S.V.P., but rather put a &#8220;Regrets Only&#8221;, so the inviter will expect you unless you respond checking the &#8220;Regrets Only&#8221; box.\u00a0 If you don&#8217;t respond, they assume you are coming.<\/li>\n<li>The choice to use periods following the letters in &#8220;R.S.V.P.&#8221; is somewhat a personal preference today, despite it being an abbreviation.\u00a0 Many guides say periods are necessary because it is an abbreviation, such as AP; others say you should not use them; and still others say it is personal preference.\u00a0 To further cloud the issue, some, like the Chicago Manual of Style, recommend only using periods if the letters are printed in all lower case, otherwise no periods.<\/li>\n<li>Etiquette first showed up in English around the 18th century.\u00a0 It derives from the Old French:\u00a0 estiquette, meaning something to the effect of &#8220;label or ticket&#8221;.\u00a0 Estiquette in turn derives from the Old French: estechier, meaning &#8220;to attach or stick&#8221;.\u00a0 It is thought that the word &#8220;etiquette&#8221; came about thanks to King Louis XIV (Louis the Great) who had \u00e9tiquettes passed out at his palace at Versailles.\u00a0 These \u00e9tiquettes were basically just little cards that had various reminders written on them like &#8220;Ne marchez pas sur l&#8217;herbe&#8221; (keep off the grass) and other such rules of conduct at the palace.<\/li>\n<li>The famed &#8220;Let them eat cake&#8221; saying often falsely attributed to Marie Antoinette, was actually referencing something the wife of Louis XIV, Maria-Th\u00e9r\u00e8se, said, around 100 years before Marie Antoinette was born.\u00a0 The actual saying \u201clet them eat cake\u201d (Qu\u2019ils mangent de la brioche) was first documented some time later by the political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his autobiography \u201cConfessions\u201d.\u00a0 At the time, Marie Antoinette was only 10 years old and living in Austria.\u00a0 In this autobiography, he was referencing a &#8220;great princess&#8221; who, when told the peasants had no bread, said \u201cWell, let them eat brioche.\u201d (brioche being a highly enriched bread).\u00a0 To read more on this and about the <em>very<\/em> sad story that was Marie Antoinette&#8217;s life.\u00a0 Go here: <a title=\"Marie Antoinette never said let them eat cake\" href=\"http:\/\/www.misconceptionjunction.com\/index.php\/2010\/10\/marie-antoinette-never-said-let-them-eat-cake\/\" target=\"_blank\">Marie Antoinette Never Said &#8220;Let Them Eat Cake&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Louis XIV had a reputation for being an extremely stinky person.\u00a0 As one Russian ambassador to France noted \u201cHis Majesty [Louis XIV] stunk like a wild animal.\u201d\u00a0 King Louis XIV stench came from the fact that his physicians advised him to bathe as infrequently as possible to maintain good health.\u00a0 He also stated he found the the act of bathing disturbing.\u00a0 Because of this, he is said to have only bathed twice in his lifetime.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re interested in finding out why bathing became so unpopular in parts of medieval Europe, check this article out: <a title=\"bathing habits in medieval europe\" href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/why-bathing-was-uncommon-in-medieval-europe\/\" target=\"_blank\">Why Bathing was uncommon in Medieval Europe<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Another in this \u201cgruesome two-some\u201d class among the aristocracy was Queen Isabel I of Spain who once confessed that she had taken a bath only twice in her lifetime, when she was first born and when she got married.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<span class=\"collapseomatic \" id=\"id69effb6009abc\"  tabindex=\"0\" title=\"Expand for References\"    >Expand for References<\/span><div id=\"target-id69effb6009abc\" class=\"collapseomatic_content \">\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Cliche Origins\" href=\"http:\/\/www.businessballs.com\/clichesorigins.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Cliche Origins<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"What does RSVP Mean?\" href=\"http:\/\/people.howstuffworks.com\/question450.htm\" target=\"_blank\">What does RSVP Mean?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Etymology of RSVP\" href=\"http:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/index.php?term=R.S.V.P.\" target=\"_blank\">Etymology of RSVP<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"RSVP Abbreviation Guide\" href=\"http:\/\/community.livejournal.com\/fandom_grammar\/24473.html\" target=\"_blank\">RSVP Abbreviation Guide<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"etymology of etiquette\" href=\"http:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/index.php?term=etiquette\" target=\"_blank\">Etymology of Etiquette<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"King Louis\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Louis_XIV_of_France\" target=\"_blank\">King Louis XIV<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com' title='Interesting Facts'>Today I found out<\/a> what R.S.V.P. stands for, namely R\u00e9pondez S&#8217;il Vous Pla\u00eet, which translates roughly as &#8220;please reply&#8221; or &#8220;reply if it pleases you&#8221;. So how did R.S.V.P.\u00a0 make its way into being used for wedding invitations and the like?\u00a0 This dates all the way back to around the 11th century when French became the fashion among the elite [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[557,1415,1414,555,554,556],"class_list":["post-2322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-i-found-out","category-language","tag-etiquette","tag-etymology-etiquette","tag-etymology-rsvp","tag-invitation","tag-r-s-v-p","tag-wedding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2322"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7292,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322\/revisions\/7292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}