The Greater Bamboo Lemur; the Celebes Crested Macaque; the Mindoro Dwarf Water Buffalo; eating while sitting down. These are all things currently facing the brutal reality of extinction, but only one is deserving of a lengthy preemptive eulogy in today’s Herald Sun bemoaning the imminent death of Good Manners as we know them, sounding a hollow death knell for civilisation itself that sadly can’t be heard for all the audible typing and swearing and spitting that has become so commonplace these days.
Apparently, new research gathered from 500 [guinea] pigs shows that Australians are abandoning common etiquette, leaving its corpse bloodied by the wayside in our ceaseless rush to reach the grave. We’re a time-poor bunch who have thrown in obsolete words like ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and even ‘hello’ in favour of swearing loudly at random; spitting in people’s faces; communicating nonverbally through a dialect of grunting, emoji and hissing; leaving a chaotic trail of chairs in our wake and standing up to eat before licking mealtime residue from our smartphone screens.
Enjoy them while they last because gender-based courtesies that presume women can’t stand up unaided or should never lean are also being read their last rites. In addition, some ninety per cent of the people surveyed by McCrindle Research believed saying “after you” in passing through a door was a cadaverous waste of time, so why bother.
Eighty-eight per cent also said sitting down to eat is something reserved solely for squares and people who are so yesterday. Instead eating while walking, browsing the Internet and watching television all at the same time is The New Black. Pushing in one’s chair after you’ve finished using it is also no longer in en vogue, meaning soon you won’t be able to walk anywhere for all the chairs in your way; your life will resemble a game of Musical Chairs in reverse, leap-frogging from one chair to another, texting while you go.
There is, however, some hope yet. Certain courtesies that form the very foundation of decent society remain strong, such as bringing a bottle of wine when dining at a friend’s house [while walking, leaning, Tweeting and telling your host where they can stick their own undrinkable Pinot, because you BYO’ed].
R.I.P. Good Manners – we hardly fkn knew thee.
via The Herald Sun
Photo by Jason Merritt via Getty, filed under ‘Rude’, ‘Flipping The Bird’
