Community Corner
Bad Manners, Declining Civility And When To Speak Up [The Question]
Readers debate when it's appropriate to correct bad manners, how to do it without shaming someone, and whether public civility is fading.
Catherine tries not to embarrass people when she attempts to stop them from embarrassing themselves with poor manners.
“I believe I’m kind, but I tell the truth in certain situations,” the Midtown-Hell’s Kitchen (New York) Patch reader said in an informal survey for The Question, an exclusive Patch column exploring etiquette and what to do in certain situations.
We asked readers if it’s ever OK to correct others’ manners or etiquette and how to do that without seeming to shame them. Readers also commented on a decline in manners that isn’t so much about elbows on the table or which fork to use but public civility.
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It’s Gross, Though
“I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, but I’m not always diplomatic, even though I try!” Catherine said, offering full self-disclosure.
But she can’t abide certain situations, like “when my friend blows her nose in a linen napkin, which grosses me out, and puts it on the table.”
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The friend didn’t take it well. And she still uses Catherine’s linen napkins as a hanky.
“She is educated but does things like that or puts her feet on my glass coffee table with her shoes on! It irritates me to the max!” Catherine said. “In both situations, I just say, ‘Please don’t do that because it’s gross!’”
‘Let’s Use Our Manners’
Arvid, a New Hampshire Patch reader, thinks it’s rude for strangers to go around correcting others on lapses in manners. But “if it’s my friends and we are at a nice place, I would gently say, ‘Hey, this is a nice place. Let’s use our manners,’” he said. “Take them aside and quietly tell them how you feel.”
Brookfield (Connecticut) Patch Linda said there’s really no graceful way for one adult to call out another’s etiquette missteps. But it’s not an issue for her. Linda said she probably wouldn’t be friends with people whose manners were questionable.
“If it’s a stranger in my realm, I wouldn’t even bother to correct them,” Linda said. “Only if a person is directly impeding me would I tell them their behavior is abhorrent; at that point their feelings would not be a consideration!”
‘You May Not Like It’
Only if the lapse was “something so egregious that it would embarrass them if they did the same thing again in public” would Naperville (Illinois) Patch reader Sharon correct another adult.
“When they were alone, I would tell them, ‘I’m going to say something and you may not like it, but it’s bothering me enough that I need to let you know. What you decide to do with that information is up to you,’” she said.
Glen Ellyn (Illinois) Patch reader Gabrielle said she’s only likely to correct someone’s etiquette when their behavior actually affects her. In that case, she might say something like, “Please don’t blow smoke in my direction. It’s very unpleasant to me.”
She continued, “Everybody who made it through kindergarten knows the basics of appropriate behavior. Some people are just jerks, and there’s no point in getting into shouting matches with people like that.”
‘Look And Don’t Speak’
Direct confrontation isn’t the only way to get a point across, said Nicki, a Sudbury (Massachusetts) Patch reader.
“Use an ‘I statement,’ as in, ‘When I hear a lot of loud crude language in a public place, I feel uncomfortable,’” Nicki said. “Or if someone is trying to get you to join in on inappropriate behavior, give them a blank look.”
“Stop the conversation and just look at them — you’d be surprised how many people are self-aware and self-correct,” said Bayside-Douglastown (New York) Patch reader Barbara.
Stamford (Connecticut) Patch reader Jane also signals her displeasure with another’s poor manners without a word.
“Look at them and don’t speak,” she said, adding:
“We’re all born, and we’ll all die. Recognize that everyone is your fellow on this journey. More than about rights, it’s about compassion. Manners follow feelings of empathy in the most natural way.”
‘Manners Need A Comeback’
Correcting children’s manners is the job of their parents, not other adults, many readers said.
“It is never acceptable to correct someone else’s manners unless it is your child and you can say it without embarrassing anyone else,” Florida Patch reader Char said.
“Elbows on the table do not bother me, especially if you are just sitting at the table chatting before or after dinner,” Char continued. “Talking with your mouth full of food does, and I would only correct a small child. It also bothers me when people pick from a buffet with their fingers when in a home or restaurant. I then pass up whatever was touched.”
“It comes down to good parenting,” said West Bloomfield (Michigan) Patch reader Toby. “Manners and civility have to be taught to children. It doesn’t come naturally. They need to learn it as kids.”
“I wish more parents would do this,” said Elmhurst (Illinois) Patch reader Margaret. “Manners need to make a comeback! It’s embarrassing to watch so many people behave badly.”
‘Make It A Joke’
Alpharetta-Milton (Georgia) Patch reader Leslie clings to hope.
“I’m afraid manners are not a priority anymore,” Leslie said. “But I’m always happy when people, especially young people, are polite.”
Kate, a Cinnaminson (New Jersey) Patch reader, thinks it’s OK to offer manners guidance “any time that you feel you can do it in a kind way.”
“Be direct. For example, ‘It makes me a little uncomfortable when you slurp your soup around me,’” she said.
Joan, a Greenbelt (Maryland) Patch reader, offered a different approach.
“Be conversational, not superior. You might say, ‘Slurping your spaghetti is throwing sauce on others/the host's table cloth/my sleeve.’ Make it a joke. ‘Have you tried aiming at your plate?’ Or say, ‘Thanks, but I have enough sauce,’” she said.
Regardless of the tactic, Joan said, “Someone is inevitably going to be embarrassed.”
The COVID Effect
A survey a couple of years ago by Pew Research Center found nearly half of U.S. adults thought public behavior was ruder than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Some reader comments support that.
“COVID-19 created a divide during quarantine and reinforced ‘everyone for themselves,’” said Montgomery County-Lansdale (Pennsylvania) Patch reader Zoey. “We only start caring about each other when we strengthen community and find common ground.”
East Meadow (New York) Patch Jane was the target of a clumsy attempt to correct her manners.
“I was recently admonished on a subway platform for invading someone’s personal space as I came to wait for a train. Ever been on a subway? There is no personal space,” Jane said. “After I was so rudely spoken to, I was stunned. I even stepped back, but the woman kept going off on me. Then I let her have it. I said she was rude and disturbed, and I walked to another waiting post.
She added, “I remember during COVID some people thought it was OK to yell at someone for not standing 6 feet away or for not wearing a mask. I never thought that was OK. That is not OK.”
‘I Wasn’t Polite At All’
Some readers said the decline in civility has made public cruelty, name-calling and casual disrespect feel more tolerated, even normalized.
Kathleen is unapologetic about her public reckoning after witnessing what could rightly be called bullying while standing in a store checkout line.
“I wasn’t polite at all,” she said. “I witnessed two young female clerks very obviously making fun of the teenage boy in line in front of me with smirks, smiles and side-eye glances between the two of them.”
The longer it went on — about four minutes, Kathleen estimated — the angrier she became.
“As soon as the boy left the store, I verbally called them out on their behavior. The one girl said, 'Oh, you don’t know what he does when you're not here,’ to which I angrily replied, ‘I don’t care. You don’t treat people that way.’
“I’m sure the teenage girls were embarrassed, as well they should have been, yet I doubt very highly they will blatantly embarrass another human being the way that I’m sure that poor teenage boy was.”
‘I Witness It Every Day’
Corrine, an Upper East Side (New York) Patch reader, said she sees examples of the decline in manners and civility every day — “on the New York City subway, in restaurants, even in my office, which is a top-notch professional establishment.”
“People not holding doors for others or saying thank you when a door is held for them; keeping common pantries neat and clean after use, that sort of thing,” she said. “I see it within my family. My stepchild, her husband and her children are among the rudest I have encountered, not greeting their grandfather or me, not acknowledging gifts they are given, glaringly excluding us from holidays hosted at their home — all very rude and bad behavior.”
Corrine said it is futile to try to change their behavior.
“Adults should know better, but if they don’t, then they run the risk of appearing ignorant, rude, and/or selfish,” she said.
Children need the guidance, she said, but it should be offered “in private and quietly, never in front of others, and if not in the moment, then at another time soon after with carefully chosen words.”
“If manners are not taught and enforced at home from babyhood, there is little hope that those people will grow into courteous and respectful adults,” Corrine said.
Thanks, Boomer
That’s the conundrum, according to Florida Patch reader Kari. Younger people don’t know what they don’t know about their grandparents’ traditions. She cited this example:
“When dining at practically any restaurant where table service is the norm, it is unconscionable that a server addresses a group in which there are one or more senior ladies as ‘you guys.’ But it is part of the modern vernacular, demonstrating a total lack of respect for those of seniority.”
It goes without saying that parents should correct their underage children’s lack of manners, Kari said.
“Unfortunately, modern parents don’t have the basic understanding either, so this has become a generational phenomenon, most notably dating back to the Baby Boomers generation as parents themselves,” she said.
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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