Shopportunist By Shannon Fromma, Times Union on December 15, 2020 at 12:08 PM
‘Tis the season to tip.
It’s perpetually perplexing and can be as financially confounding as filing taxes, but tipping is considered customary, especially around the holidays. But whose stocking do we stuff and with how much?
Thanks to a lack of written rules and standards, confusion abounds. But there are plenty of opinions and implied pressure. It’s enough to leave your tinsel in a twist.
We can thank our ancestors for all this added stress. Several theories exist as to how the custom began. One suggests that in medieval times, “tips” of gold were given to peasants in the streets by horse-mounted feudal lords as payment for safe passage. Another common explanation is that the practice began in 16th-century English pubs, where patrons in a hurry would place a gratuity in a table-top box inscribed with “TIP” (“to insure promptitude”).
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