I don’t believe anyone said any such thing, in this thread anyway.
I think most of the above have gotten it, I’ll just add that context matters.
“Hi… could you let me through? This is my stop right up here.”
“You didn’t say please.” <— douche
“Hey sport. Pass me that box over there.” <–douche.
“How about ‘please pass me that box’?”
But that’s the point of etiquette, as I’ve always understood it. While being genuinely nice is great, being polite is below that. It means you may actually be thinking meaner words, but you don’t say them. That would be impolite.
I also remember Miss Manners telling you a lot about how to correct people. You always implied there was something wrong, without flat out saying it.
Have you read Miss Manners? While she will occasionally defer to specific rules, she regularly emphasizes that manners is not about uttering magic words or conforming to arbitrary standards, but about treating people decently and not being a jerk. About 95% of her etiquette lessons boil down to “don’t be a jerk” and “be gracious when other people appear to be jerks; they probably didn’t mean to”. The last 5% is probably “there is no polite way to request money/presents socially”.
When she does mention specific rules, she generally explains why failing to adhere to them would be jerkish.
Correcting someone’s manners when they aren’t your child and they haven’t explicitly asked for your help is being a jerk. Not saying ‘please’ might appear to be jerkish to you, but rule 2 comes into play, and you should assume that they meant to say please but it slipped their mind, or that they grew up with different customs.
I suspect you are misremembering. Miss Manners has always been plenty clear on the subject it seems to me.
[QUOTE=Miss Manners]
It amazes Miss Manners that people often assume that etiquette advisers run about the society giving unsolicited instructions and perhaps issuing tickets to violators. Being themselves perfect, etiquette advisers would be the last to do any such dreadful thing.
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[QUOTE=Miss Manners]
One rule about correcting others is that you do so only if the error is something that can be easily and immediately remedied – the spinach on the tooth rule. Another is that you not shame innocent people by demonstrating that you know more than they do[.]
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[QUOTE=Miss Manners]
It is admittedly difficult to arrest the pleasure of correcting and advising long enough to ask oneself who will feel better after the correction is delivered-- the person issuing it, or the one who gets it full in the face? But it is well worth the effort, not only for kindness’ sake, but because it is a law of nature that he who corrects others will soon do something perfectly awful himself.
Evan if it be proven that the mistakes of others come from gross ignorance or maliciousness, it is not the place of anyone except God, their mothers, or Miss Manners to bring this to their attention. As dear Erasmus said," It is part of the highest civility if, while never erring yourself, you ignore the errors of others."
Miss Manners prefers to believe that everyone means well, and that if anyone seems to be doing something wrong, it is probably not from intent but from forgetfulness, busyness, absence of mind, or illness. Miss Manners may be mistaken in this now and again, but she leads a happier life for believing it. "
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I admit I was reading between the lines of what you’ve said. But I was basing it on posts like this:
So you believe that the decline of ‘please’ means that people have no longer have any respect for each other, and that tone cannot possibly imply respect. I assumed that the corollary to that was that if you say ‘please’ that automatically *does *demonstrate respect, and that tone doesn’t matter. Which I find bizarre. I apologize if that’s not what you mean though.
I haven’t actually read Miss Manners and maybe I shouldn’t have used her name in that context. I just meant that I understand why there are rules of polite behaviour that you teach children and whatnot, but that real-world politeness is actually much more fluid than that, and can be difficult to pin down. It sounds like we don’t disagree on that.
Good examples; about sums it up IMO.
Yes, 99.9% of the time.
Yes, we do agree. I think Miss Manners would, too, for the most part, although she does often point out that people will often claim that certain rules of etiquette are outdated because either they don’t really understand the rule in the first place or because they’d prefer that it didn’t exist (because they want to act like a jerk).
If you haven’t read her, I highly recommend reading a few of her columns. She is quite witty and does an excellent job of explaining the reason behind the practice of etiquette and why it should still apply. Also, because her opinion on etiquette is explicitly requested, she is able to properly put people in their place when they are being rude, which provides a vicarious thrill of the sort that attracts us all to pointing out the rudeness of others.