What’s The Best Way To Correct Someone’s Bad Manners; Should You Even Try? [The Question]

Have Americans lost their manners?

There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest we’ve moved away from some old social rules: formal table settings, handwritten thank-you notes, the use of titles, saying “please” and “thank you,” and dressing up for certain occasions.

But the strongest evidence that manners have declined isn’t about elbows on the table or which fork to use. It’s about public civility.

Nearly half of U.S. adults surveyed by Pew Research Center in 2024 said public behavior is ruder than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, and about a third said they witness rude behavior in daily life. Only 9 percent said people are more polite.

The real loss may be a shared code for what’s acceptable. People still value respect, but they increasingly disagree about what respect looks like. Without common rules, even decent people can come off as rude.

So, in the quest for a more polite society, is it OK to correct someone’s manners? If so, what’s the right way to do it while preserving the other person’s dignity?

What’s the best way to say, “Mabel, Mabel, strong and able, get your elbows off the table,” without actually saying it? Do such formalities even matter now? Is the correction itself rude behavior? “Tell us where you draw the line between helpful correction and rude behavior.”

We’re asking for The Question, an exclusive Patch column exploring etiquette and what to do in certain situations. Just fill out the survey below, and, as always, we don’t collect email addresses.

About The Question

The Question is an exclusive Patch series posing a broad array of questions on etiquette and what to do in certain situations — and readers provide the answers. If you have a topic you’d like us to consider, email beth.dalbey@patch.com with “The Question” as the subject line.

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