h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, manners, why do we have them, and are they really that important.

Things like, flatulating in public, rifting away merrily, or eating with your mouth open and producing the complimentary sound effects of food being chewed (not that they are complimentary at all).

But then there is the general courtesy to your fellow buddy. Why should we show courtesy at all to anyone, why not do as we please and if ANYBODY voices an opinion on what u do how u do it and the attitude in which u are doing it in (this not about sex at this time, as my previous entry was ), well they can just go and jump the lake (windemere sounds refreshing in january (How Heiniken!!))

other small things that I see people not doing is for example, eye contact, very few people to day have eye contact with the person they are talking to, be it a waiter/waitress, raffle ticket person, cinema seat finder person (maybe not u never see them in the dark do u, eeeeek what if they have green glowing eyes, should lock these people up not employ them.....).

Well I for one thinkl that these people are just rude rude rude, and well Dr Lecter would agree with me here, they should just be eaten, I'm sure he'd oblige.

Not enough manners around these days, old chap. I do like the Heineken comment

manners are vital whatever year or society you live in.

they are the social lubricant that stops things getting out of hand.

however what is meant by manners changes depending on which generation and locale you were raised in.

Re: eye contact...when I was growing up eye contact got you in trouble...it was avoided at all costs. Since moving down south I've had to make a real effort to start making eye contact with people but it is just something I find incredibly difficult - I have to consciously do it and when I'm conscious of doing it it makes me feel awkward, friends from similar backgrounds from similar places (all up north tho) have agreed. Somewhere in the depths of my head eye contact means confrontation and I feel very uncomfortable making eye contact.

I don't usually make eye-contact when I talk to people, even people I'm friends with. I find it off-putting and I like to be able to think when I talk.

Ironically, I tend to try and make eye-contact with people I don't know, in case they think I'm being unfriendly or overly shy.

When I was a lad children NEVER addressed adults by their first names.
Now I run a village shop/post office ALL the kids address me by first name. Even ones I've never seen before. It's kind of nice, though.

Noggin

Manners are about showing respect.
Not only respect for the people around you but respect for yourself.
Manners say that I care about you and I care about me and I will be respectful of both of us.
this needs to be taught more. If you do not have manners you show a complete lack of respect for yourself. That's a sad thing. It means that you are not important.
We should all have manners. Because it means that we know that what we have to contribute as people is important.

Well, I've found that a little use of manners gets you a long, and the same the opposite way round.:
If someone walks up to me sand says" Oh, you fix this for me now".
Then, unles its someone I know who is taking the mick, then they haven't a chance in hell, but a little curtasy, and a few manners, will get me helping the most awful person with an essay/work/whatever.
And, I always try to do the same, weather its a taxi driver, ticket salesperson at the train station, or a company representative on the telephone.
You have to show respect, and demonstrate suitible manners, or you get shoved around yourself, as they see fit for a unmannered person, and likewise, if you are shown little manners by people you are dealing with then they can expect little but the same from you (the moreso if this continues)
A few more manners, and "thank you", and "excuess me", and "please" 's all about and we would all function a little better, be a little happier, and consequently behave a little more humanly to our fellow peoples whith whom we meet.

There is a difference between manners and ettiquette. Manners are, as Wejut has pointed out, about showing respect.

I had worded it differently in my mind. I view manners as being about keeping people inside their comfort zone. Etiquette can take people way outside their comfort zones. So, paradoxically, sticking to etiquette can be incredibly bad manners.

There is a story told about Queen Victoria, which is probably untrue. At a state banquet there was someone who was not a British Aristocrat; I am not sure whether they were foreign or British, but just not from the aristocracy. Anyway there were finger bowls of water with lemon on the table like the finger bowls that some restaurants provide if you eat mussels. Whoever it was thought that it his for drinking and drank from it. Gasps of horror all around the table. But QV saw what had happened and drank from hers. Which is either as patronsing as hell, or extremely good manners.

Interesting about the eye contact. It is vastly over-rated as a sign of honesty, integrity, putting people at their ease, communication, etc.

Too many of the books about body language are culturally-specific.

For the record - yes, manners matter.

B

As you know, I have two of the best brought up sons in the world. The younger, when 7 years old was invited to the British embassy for dinner and managed the work inwards from the outide cutlery rule very well. The first course (for him) was grapefruit. So he shook the silver caster over it. Unfortunately it contained salt, not sugar. He ate the resultant mess without wincing. The essence of good manners is not creating a fuss on social occasions. Political meetings and football matches are another story

personally, I would say that queen victoria doing that was good manners.

drinking from the finger bowl was a mistake, but it does not justify the bad manners of the other guests.

good maners in this situation is obeying house rules. By also drinking from her finger bowl, she changed the house rules, and thus she shows the other guests to have bad manners as they are now in the position of insulting their host by their prior behaviour.

And, isn't it also the case that what constitutes good mannors at one period in hitory won't necessarily in another; don't mannors, like language change with time?

I keep meaning to sign up to the 'campaign for courtesy'. They used to be called 'polite society' but I believe someone pointed out that Adolf Hitler was quite polite, so they changed their name.

I opened the door for an ederly lady the other day. She was quite a long way off but was a slow walker so I was stood there for some time. You can guess she walked through without saying a word. The man behind must have registered the shock on my face and said 'thank you' with a knowing smile.

That's a really silly reason to change their name.

The Hitler thing is actually very interesting. If Hitler had said sorry after having invaded Poland, would that have made it any better? When manners are something we are taught and do as a refelx, they loose any meaning. Sorry should be something you say to show you are sorry, not because you are expected to. Else you suddenly loose that ability. You won`t be able to say to someone you are sorry by saying sorry, as they will just expect you are saying it because you have to.

There is a saying in Australia that good fences make for good neighbours. I think that is what we should remember in social interactions. But there are a lot of silly rituals we could live without.

I think the basis of politeness or good manners is respect for, and consideration of, other people, including their own cultural habits. Lots of stuff differs between cultures. I live here in South Africa amongs many non-European cultures. The different cultures have generally adapted to each other and developed a standard form of politeness that is quite simple. When you meet someone, just take time to greet, and ask how that person is, and give him/her time to reply and ask how you are also. This happens even in shops and at garages and so on... you greet the person serving you and ask how things are before doing business.

Around here elements like 'personal space' seems to differ from culture to culture, still. People of African cultures have a sense of a smaller personal space than people of European heritage. Also there's the handshake ... the African variety is to shake with a fairly weak grip, in a three-part movement: a grasp of the whole hand in the other person's, then a grasp of each others thumbs, then back to the whole hand again. The European (English and Afrikaans) way is to shake with a firm grasp and just a single movement. Since the late Eighties, however, young white people in South Africa have started using the African style of handshake among themselves but still with the traditional firm grip.

Eye contact is also a tricky affair ... body contact as well. Some people here go into a lot of body contact ... grabbing by the arms or shoulders or so. I myself have a bit of an 'issue' about body contact ... I used to work in a gym, and once there a man grabbed me by the arm, with no warning ... as an immediate reflex, without thinking, and with a very violent motion, I yanked away my arm ... and I was immediately very worried that I might have given the guy offense, but it was a total reflex movement. It might be a good idea in general though to realise that some people do have problems with body contact.

Manners are vital, in my opinion. I get very hacked off with people who don't show them.

But manners can be many different things, from how you eat (varying with time, the group you're in and what culture you're from) to how you use the roads (in my opinion, obeying traffic laws is good manners when on the roads, which means that lots and lots of drivers are extremely rude, in my view of the world). Holding doors, even for people who clearly have no need of it, is extremely polite (probably because it's so rare). Even holding doors for the elderly, as someone noted earlier, is rare enough!

Of course, politeness works both ways and when someone's polite to you you should at least acknowledge it if the situation warrants. Which includes saying thankyou to people who hold the door.

Although I am reminded of something a policeman I knew said to me once. In Oxford Street whilst on duty, he held the door for a woman with a pushchair, who stared and him and said something like 'a polite policeman! Who'd have thought'.

I want to say more, but it's just rambling nonsense really.