Alphonse and Gaston

or Alphonse-and-Gaston

adjective

1. 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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Alphonse and Gaston¹

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