Etiquette, Politeness & Good Manners – Why Are They So Important?

Etiquette, good manners etc, you would have to be living on planet "Me-me-me" if you haven’t realized just how far we have fallen when it comes to manners & social graces etc.

Sadly, the meaning of true etiquette & politeness seems to belong to another place in time. Society as a whole is missing those very elements which are supposed to make us different from other species. Indeed, I’m sure you are aware that we are the only species on the planet that kills for reasons other than survival.



How did we get to this place, when people are afraid to make eye contact on the street? Just how far will it have to go, before we have a complete breakdown of our social structure?

Etiquette, politeness, respect and good manners are FREE! Honestly, they really don’t cost anything!



Please, allow me to explain:



As a child of the ‘50s, it was part of the upbringing process to have manners, to be polite & respectful, it’s just the way it was & we didn’t know any different. Unfortunately, many of those who came after seem to have left it off their child-rearing curriculum. Make no mistake, the blame for this is to be placed firmly & squarely at the feet of the parents, not the teachers, or the coaches, doctors, dentists, plumbers, refuse-men…….The parents!



It begins at home. Everything to do with a child’s up-bringing begins at home & is then passed down through the generations. To quote an old one…….you reap what you sow.



An easy example:



On a bus or train, I never think twice about giving up my seat to someone older or "less fortunate" or a pregnant lady. How did I know how to do this? That’s easy – I’ve ALWAYS done it. My Mom & Dad made me do it as a small child of maybe six or seven and one of them, not sure which one, explained why when I got home, took a couple of seconds, made as much sense then as it does now!



That sort of thing happened regularly at home. Some of it didn’t make much sense until I got a little older but by then, it was part of who I was. Quick point here. My Mom was a machinist in a shopping bag factory & my Dad worked in construction. There was nothing elite-ist about us, just an ordinary working family.



Fortunately, etiquette is making a come-back in everyday life. I did a quick search using Google’s adwords tool (April 26th 2011) and was more than a little surprised at the number of searches, global & local:



· Etiquette……………………………1,220,000

· Business Etiquette…………………….74,000

· Wedding Etiquette…………………...110,000

· Manners & Etiquette…………………..12,000

· Wedding Etiquette Invitations………...33,000

· Dining Etiquette……………………….14,000.

 

Those figures are refreshing to see & renews my faith in that there will always be good, decent people out there, even if they missed out on the basics as a child, through no fault of their own, they still want to learn. To have good manners, politeness & respect, is to be accepted, in ALL walks of life. People will always look up to a person with those qualities.



I dug further with my research & came across an old book which was first published in the early 1920’s entitled: The Encyclopaedia of Etiquette. This book is a true reflection of how people lived their lives back then & the code they lived by. Strangely enough, the book covers all the above mentioned forms of etiquette. It's been updated & converted to PDF format so can be read from any computer & consists of over 290 pages. Also there’s a free preview which can be downloaded. Enjoy!



Kindest Regards,



Pete Quinn



The Encyclopaedia of Etiquette is a true reflection of how people lived, back in the early 1920's. It can also be the platform for a valuable source of reference as, although it's been updated, the original text & format have remained the same. For a preview, please feel free to visit http://www.politesocietybookclub.com Thank you.