I enjoy the opportunity to hold up various of my long-held beliefs/preferences for inspection, which generally results in my realizing how arbitrary they are. In a recent thread, I brought up the convention of men taking their hats off at the dining table. Just something I learned as a kid. Not sure why I would really care one way or the other.
Similarly, for whatever reason I developed a perception that use of the bell was - I dunno - more civilized/proper? Maybe because - as I grew up and I believe still - generally doorbells are a front door only thing. And front doors were to some extent reserved for strangers and more formal visits. Close friends and family were more likely to go to the back door, where they would knock.
I assume 90% of all folk coming to my door use the bell rather than knock. I think the primary time I will eschew a bell is if there is an obvious knocker. Maybe knocking impresses me as more aggressive - the act of knocking with one’s knuckles as opposed to gently pressing a button. And when I await trick-or-treaters, I generally expect the bell and a knock - close behind where I was sitting - was mildly startling. Obviously, different persons react differently.
No - no right or wrong. And nothing I’m losing any sleep over.
And when we were kids, our general practice was to go down the gangway to the backyard gate (the way all homes in my Chicago neighborhood were situated) and call out, in a singsong manner “Yo-oh (name)!”
I get it. But while you say there is “no right or wrong,” you also state that you view knocking as more aggressive. Which is fine. It helps explain your point of view.
I’m not suggesting we don’t discuss these arbitrary beliefs/preferences. It’s a fun thing we do here. Like learning about men who pee sitting down, or pretend to like dancing
Years ago in El Paso we’d have some minor but noticeable percentage of kids who would just yell, which I found peculiar. Some of them probably walked away candyless because nobody heard them.
My (sarcasm) favorite are those who ring, then immediately knock. I’m not fucking deaf.
I watch a fair amount of British television programmes, and police always knock instead of ringing even if there is a doorbell in front of their noses.
Even if they were tall enough now, for most of their lives they’ve knocked on doors because they were short.
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Not where I come from (Mke suburbs). We used to say “Friends knock, salesmen ring.” We kids used to run for the door if it was a knock (esp. the “Shave and a haircut…” beat. That meant it was a kid, and “everyone” was playing some game outside).
Now you’ve got me thinking of cultural references to knocking or ringing doorbells. Opportunity knocks. (Was Opportunity not raised right?) But those cookie-grubbing kids in the children’s book The Doorbell Rang didn’t! (Miss Manners is very clear on this: if you’re going to show up to someone’s house unannounced, asking for cookies, forcing your hosts to do math to figure out how many everyone gets now, it’s totes cool as long as you ring the bell.) Skyler White feared a knock at the door from someone coming to hurt their family, to which Walter angrily declared, “I am the danger! I am the one who knocks!” (Because they both know anyone who announces their arrival with a benign “ding-dong” is too prim and proper to kill anyone.) Of course, knocking isn’t always serious; there’s a whole genre of terrible jokes that start that way. But they’re not as annoying as ding-dong-ditchers!
I tend to knock, because there are a fair number of doorbells that I can’t hear from outside the house, and I don’t know whether I can’t hear it because it’s broken or because the house is soundproofed. I don’t want to ring a broken doorbell and then stand outside like a complete knob while the unaware folks in the house go about their business. If I knock, at least I know I made a sound.
I can understand this approach. But MY thought (no better or worse than yours) is, what percentage of doorbells do you think are broken?
Do you apply a similar thought process to other electronic devices? “Yeah, this relatively simple technology was placed here for a purpose. And in the great majority of ties it works as intended/expected. But on the outside chance that THIS ONE won’t work, I’ll defer in all cases to a different approach.”
I have the same thoughts as you, but my response is to ring, then if no answer in some reasonable time, knock. I could imagine if I knocked first, that might cause the resident to wonder if their bell was broken.
This is close to what I was thinking. Most of the houses I remember as a kid had doorbells that didn’t really work. They’d break down and it wasn’t considered essential to repair them. Trick or treating is about getting to as many houses as quickly as possible, so you’d do what worked. Those house handing out candy were right next to the door, anyways, so they’d hear your knocking.
On the other hand, because they were rare, I did get a kick out of trying the doorbells the rest of time, even when it was clear by the reaction of the inhabitants that they’d have rather me just come in or knock. I suspect it was just how loud and long the bells were (when they worked). And, well, because they were more often expecting me than not. None of my neighbors that I might drop in on had doorbells, and adults wouldn’t drive to people’s houses who weren’t expecting you (except on Halloween). So any place that had doorbells were already expecting me to arrive.
