Fair enough, I just don’t quite see how one can expect please and thank you to a cashier while wearing a ballcap and t-shirt to a funeral.
I’m confused. Why do you have to have your phone turned on throughout the game/show/whatever? I understand that if your ticket is on your phone you need to have your phone on when you’re entering in order to show the ticket, but why can’t you turn your phone off once you’ve shown the ticket? When I fly my boarding pass is on my phone, but once I’m on the plane I don’t need to keep my phone on.
Because every time I leave my seat to go to the restroom or concession stand , I will have to turn it back on to get to my seat and possibly to pay at the concession stand or to pay a vendor in the stands, who probably doesn’t want to wait while I turn my phone on to pay him. Maybe if I sat in the upper deck I wouldn’t have to show my ticket every time I return to my seat , but in my not-terribly expensive seat, I do. Sure, I could try to remember to keep turning it on and off ( but I will absolutely forget at least once) but it doesn’t really matter at baseball game and I don’t see why turning it to silent and keeping it in your pocket isn’t good enough even for a movie.
Like I’ve said - I don’t often go to sporting events. But it really surprises me to hear so many folk decry noise and distractions at what always impressed me as pretty loud events.
Whoa whoa whoa whooa whoooooaaaahhh . . .
Does Friendly’s even exist anymore?
Tripler
Yeah, I know ‘Fribble’.
I think so, but they’re gone from my area.
Apparently there is one only 20 minutes from me in fact.
I used to work at one in my hometown in high school and college. They tore “mine” down ~ 15-20 years ago, and I thought the whole company went bankrupt.
Tripler
I learned something today.
I worked for one back in 1984. At a Mall no less.
It would depend on the funeral. In some cases, both the deceased and the family would think the ballcap and t-shirt were just fine – though you’d probably want to be sure they were the right team’s gear.
I see a distinction. “Please” and “Thank you” actually convey information in the conversation. You say “please” to let it be known that you are making a polite request, not a firm request or a demand. You say “thank you” to let it be known that you appreciate what the other person did.
Clothing rules don’t do that. Someone wearing the wrong clothing isn’t doing so to convey “I wish to disrespect you.” They most likely just adhere to different standards of dress.
Plus the majority of rules formal clothing came from classism. The people with that standard of dress were considered lesser. Only the people who could afford these fancier clothes (which tended to be more expensive and less utilitarian) were “cultured.” That’s why, as we push for a more egalitarian society, those things tend to go by the wayside, but people still use “please” and “thank you.”
The hat one is a bit of an anomaly, in that, while it possibly started with knights taking off their gear, it tended to get embraced by people of all classes. The hat stops having its usual function indoors, so it made sense to take it off. Since women’s hats were often not really functional, they didn’t get taken off.
The thing is, now baseball caps are often functional indoors. They hide hair (or lack thereof). People are actually wearing them for a specific look, which they think looks better. Plus a lot of the places where you used to take them off are becoming less formal. It would be odd to have to take your hat off at a loud restaurant.
I’m not saying that I agree that one should never observe what @Llama_Llogophile terms “formalities.” They do have the purpose you state. But there is an argument that they are less important than the courtesies ones that convey meaning. And even those are less important than the ones that actually help out other people.
A separate post to address the funeral thing: I just think the courtesy (or formality) here is impractical. Sure, some people on the road can take 15 minutes out of what they doing. But a significant portion can’t, especially during the day when funerals tend to be held (so there is enough light at the burial site). People have appointments and jobs and such that they can’t be that late for. And while a responsible person will plan some wiggle room, they likely don’t have that much.
I do get the attempt to keep the funeral procession together. So, as long as it doesn’t take too long, I’m okay with the part where cops let them use traffic lights on red, which may block others. But, if the procession is long enough, it probably needs for practical reasons to be broken up so people can go by. Being fifteen minutes late is actually a big deal in a whole lot of the current world.
I suspect this is the reason that people also often carpool from the church to the gravesite, to make the procession smaller. That’s them being courteous in the practical way I mentioned above.
Okay, I don’t go to sporting events, so I didn’t know that you had to keep showing your ticket whenever you leave your seat.
I don’t use my phone as a wallet, so that never occurred to me as a reason to keep your phone on. But I would think that keeping it on silent would be good enough at a movie. Back when I went to movies, it was the people who talked or watched stuff on their phones during the movie (why the hell are you not watching the movie) that bothered me.
A Mom taking he kid to school or getting a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, and I don’t roll my eyes.
There are a couple of new dress related customs that I have yet to get used to, old lady that I am.
One is visible bra straps. Not only does no one try to conceal them anymore, it’s seems like it’s almost fashionable. I’m not talking about a little glimpse of strap at the shoulder, I’m talking about things like wearing a standard shoulder strap bra with a racerback tank.
The other is wearing very short fancy cocktail dresses, frequently sequined, the kind you wear with heels, without stockings or pantyhose. It’s the bare legs with fancy clothes, although it doesn’t bother me at all if the dress is below the knee.
I don’t know why those things bug me, it’s not prudishness, it just that it doesn’t look right to me.
I’m pretty sure it was on this board that someone once spoke about being in church, on Good Friday, when a person in front of them’s phone went off. And not only did they not silence it, they answered the call. During the most solemn day of the church year!!!
That doesn’t annoy me, but somehow it looks off.
I think that depends a lot on exactly what the rules are - there’s a difference between being expected to wear a tuxedo/gown or even a suit/dress and being expected to wear non- denim pants and something other than a t-shirt. Most people, even many quite poor people , can manage non- denim pants and something other than a T-shirt.
Sometimes people don’t follow the rules for a reason I can’t quite put my finger on, except that maybe those people don’t think there should be any rules at all, or at least that they should never be expected to comply with them or maybe it’s that only dress codes that meet their standards are acceptable.
I was recently on a cruise and about a week after I returned, I saw people complaining about being turned away from a restaurant on the ship I had been on . There were at least ten restaurants. Only two had a dress code and the one these people were turned away from was the more formal main dining room, which serves exactly the same menu as the less formal dining room. What was the dress code? - no shorts and men had to wear a collared shirt and closed toe shoes. That’s it - jeans were fine , polo or golf shirts were fine, and sneakers were fine. These people were complaining about being turned away for wearing shorts and a collared shirt. Everyone on that ship had at least one pair of pants and a pair of closed toe shoes, as the cruise left NYC in February. They weren’t upset because they couldn’t have dinner and they weren’t upset because they didn’t have appropriate clothes. Why they were upset exactly , I don’t know - but the way they went on about how nice their shorts were and how ripped up jeans would have been acceptable (they wouldn’t have been) , I suspect they don’t have a problem with the idea of a dress code but rather the fact that they don’t get to decide what it is. Which if you ask me is getting pretty close to conveying a lack of respect - if not for the other passengers who specifically chose the formal dining room , then at least for the idea that management can set a dress code.
The whole thing about, before you speak (or write, I suppose), consider whether what you are about to say is true, kind, helpful and necessary. If you’re not sure it is, maybe don’t say it. I favour that, and I wish it was more widely observed.
I’m an informal guy, but this peeves me to no end. I worked in a casual industry. When a business associate passed away, me and two co-workers attended his funeral service, and we wore suits. It’s respectful. He was quite well-known and the service was widely attended. There were people there who looked like they just stopped by on their way to or from the gym. I was shocked at the utter cluelessness. If you don’t have a suit, fine, but at least wear something appropriate to the occasion.
We attended a street fair in our city, held on Mother’s Day, a real family event, attended by thousands of people. I spotted a guy wearing a t-shirt that said in large bright red letters, “Fuck You!” I cannot, for the life of me, understand why anyone would choose to dress that way under any circumstances, much less an event like that.
I was going to say a broader version of that… having conversations loudly in public spaces of any kind is one of those etiquette things people breach ALL the time.
I mean, standing in line in a restaurant, I don’t need to hear ALL of one side of a conversation. It’s one thing if their phone rings, they answer, say “I’ll call you back” or “Yes”, “No” or whatever short answer then hang up. I don’t mind that. But a long conversation on the train, in line, wherever there are a lot of other people who are being annoyed? That’s over the line.
Double points if they have it on speaker and are holding it about 3 inches from their mouth and could easily just hold it like a normal phone.