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

Why has man (or woman) evolved an inate propensity to form queues?

What evolutionary factors would have developed such a trait?

The fear of missing out on something?

Or is it just that we like to hang about with other people and a queue seems as good a place as any?

It may well be the only thing the British can ever win at. It should be considered as an olympic event so that we can enter Thora Hird in the 200m Pension Queue... We'd win hands down.

In my understanding, queueing, despite being very hard to spell, is both an Anglo - Saxon ritual only (travel to most exotic areas of the planet and one will quickly realise that the very very notion of 'I was 'ere first' has never been raised in some cultures) and also very much misunderstood by it's progenitors, the best example of which is a queue containing an even number of young and elderly people. Neither age group trusts the other. The old regard youth in general as devil spawn and are more than willing to inflict horriffic and sometimes fatal injuries with bags, umbrellas, walking sticks etc. Whereas the young regard the old with contempt for reminding them of their own mortality and moving soooooooo slowly in their busy workaday lives and so feelings of distrust are rife in the modern queue, making what was once a charming and rather socialist tradition, a seething cauldron of violence, contempt, fear and potential death.
Suggested course of action: Abandon the queueing system (but make sure everyone agrees first!)

In my understanding, queueing, despite being very hard to spell, is both an Anglo - Saxon ritual only (travel to most exotic areas of the planet and one will quickly realise that the very very notion of 'I was 'ere first' has never been raised in some cultures) and also very much misunderstood by it's progenitors, the best example of which is a queue containing an even number of young and elderly people. Neither age group trusts the other. The old regard youth in general as devil spawn and are more than willing to inflict horriffic and sometimes fatal injuries with bags, umbrellas, walking sticks etc. Whereas the young regard the old with contempt for reminding them of their own mortality and moving soooooooo slowly in their busy workaday lives and so feelings of distrust are rife in the modern queue, making what was once a charming and rather socialist tradition, a seething cauldron of violence, contempt, fear and potential death.
Suggested course of action: Abandon the queueing system (but make sure everyone agrees first!)

In my understanding, queueing, despite being very hard to spell, is both an Anglo - Saxon ritual only (travel to most exotic areas of the planet and one will quickly realise that the very very notion of 'I was 'ere first' has never been raised in some cultures) and also very much misunderstood by it's progenitors, the best example of which is a queue containing an even number of young and elderly people. Neither age group trusts the other. The old regard youth in general as devil spawn and are more than willing to inflict horriffic and sometimes fatal injuries with bags, umbrellas, walking sticks etc. Whereas the young regard the old with contempt for reminding them of their own mortality and moving soooooooo slowly in their busy workaday lives and so feelings of distrust are rife in the modern queue, making what was once a charming and rather socialist tradition, a seething cauldron of violence, contempt, fear and potential death.
Suggested course of action: Abandon the queueing system (but make sure everyone agrees first!)