Last year I read a book by Lynn Truss entitled - Talk to the Hand - The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door. I laughed last year when I read it and I think I laughed just as much this year.
The book discusses some interesting ideas about manners - (though it is not a book about manners - it's kind of like the programme 'Grumpy Old Men' that give hilarious examples of bad manners and what ticks people off) it also gives some food for thought i.e "It used to be just CIA agents with ear pieces who walked around with preoccupied faraway expressions and consequently regardled all the little people as irrelevant scum. Now... it's nearly everybody" (page 29) (here she is discussing the use of mobile phones/ipods in public areas).
I have extracted a few measures of, whether manners are 'dead,' from the book, that you could try / look out for in your spare time
1) Bump into people on purpose - see how many people say sorry to you? (Be careful with this one!)
2) Hold the door open for people - see how many 'thank-yous' you get
3) See if people thank the driver when they get off the bus
4) When driving, give way to some1 (i.e. let them turn) and see if you get a thank you
One statistic mentioned in the book was that for item 1, the response was 80% (of people said sorry)
And lastly something for us students from pg 23 "The writer who neglets spelling and punctuation is quite arrogantly dumping a lot of avoidable work on the reader, who deserves to be treated with more respect" ha ha - I'd better go back and check for spelling mistakes..........
