Talk to the Hand by Lynne Truss

In Lynne Truss's book, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door, the author describes the current state of rudeness in society.  In Lynne's previous book, Eats Shoots and Leaves, she suggests that proper punctuation helps make clear the intentions of a writer. 

In my experience people generally respond favorably to having a door opened for them, but Lynne has often encountered indifference which is troubling.  People do need to exchange phatic phrases ("Thank you. Hello. How are you? Nice to meet you.") that acknowledge that we are not in our own bubble but are interacting with the rest of the world.  

How do we confront bad behavior in social situations.  We have to weigh the risks.  Is this person likely to do me physical harm or will my failure to correct the bad behavior cause harm to myself or others? Enforcing the no smoking rule on campus can be dependent on the situation with safety taking priority. While I was on an emergency response, a man walked up to me, took a drag from his cigarette, and asked, "So where's the natural gas leak?" I firmly but politely told him to extinguish his cigarette.  I then pointed them towards the gas leak and told him that's why my meters was beeping.

High end table manners with some arbitrary rules about which way to eat peas with which utensil are used as methods of class distinction rather than assessing if some one has good overall manners. Reducing the tendency to tell people to "eff off" as Lynne puts it would go a long way to increasing civility, as would decreasing those behaviors which elicit that response.   

Punctuation at English School with Lynne Truss - 19 minutes