Alphonse and Gaston

or Al·phonse-and-Gas·ton


adjective

marked by a ritualistic courtliness in which two often competing participants graciously but stubbornly defer to each other: a kind of Alphonse and Gaston act in which each man insisted the other go through the doorway first.

Origin of Alphonse and Gaston

after the title characters of a cartoon strip by American cartoonist Frederick Burr Opper (1857–1937), which first appeared in 1905