THE HEIGHT OF COURTESY
The British are renowned for being one of the (if not THE) most polite group of people in the world. But I can't help but laugh to myself and wonder, sometimes don't they take it a bit too far? The over- use of the words 'please' 'excuse me' 'thank you' and 'sorry' sometimes tend to be a bit ridiculous, especially the latter two.Let me illustrate with the exchange played out below, which I'm sure most of us have been privy to during our shopping trips to Tesco, Asda, etc:
shopper brings his/her shopping to the checkout and proceeds to unload it onto the conveyor belt
cashier: thank you (smiles or maybe not?)
shopper: thanks
cashier scans items
cashier: that will be £25, thank you.
shopper: (proferring cash/card) thank you
cashier: (scans card/rings in cash into till) can you enter your pin number, please. thanks
OR (if paying by cash) that's your £5 change. thanks.
shopper: thank you. Bye
cashier: thank you. bye
lol. Uneccessary or what? I even find myself doing it sometimes; I think its been programmed into my system as a result of being around British people. Like, just now, a lady knocked at my office door and as I let her in, she thanks me and I thank her in reply. WHAAATTTT!!! What was the point in saying that? 'thank you for thanking me for opening the door for you?' Maybe I've lived here too long.
Another example (and most of us that travel on the tube/trains/buses will have experienced this) is when you're on a packed tube/bus and someone mistakenly bumps into you/sneezes all over you/steps on your foot, etc and they quickly apologise and you say 'its alright!' Er, no it's not!
I might as well say, 'Its alright.Spray me with your germs all you want, its fine by me. I dont mind.' Why not just smile at them and leave it at that?
Or when someone bumps into you and says 'sorry' and you say 'sorry' as well, just to ease the tension, even though the other person is clearly at fault (ok, maybe this just happens with me, then).
Yup, I've definitely been here tooooooooo long!!
posted by Beautifully Human @ 4:36 PM
13 Comments:
This made me smile, it is so true. Politeness gone haywire!
Common now, it's not so extreme. Someone coming into your office and saying thank you and you thanking them back? Are you sure you're not the one taking the politeness to another level? What about the cashier saying thank you for a customer loading the conveyor belt? Only in your part of town I guess.
Yeah, we tend to say sorry to many times, unnecessarily, that I agree with.
why not. if they fart in ur face, they'll say sorry and u'll say thank you. or they'll say thank you and you'll say sorry.
Well, over here (USA), someone would step on your toe AND still roll their eyes @ u. What da hell?! And those are the polite ones o!
Wait till you meet some ghetto fabulous chic who will speak ebonics 2 u so tey your head will begin 2 spin.
Hmmmm... what part of the UK do you live in... the cashiers at my local are not as polite!
Seriously - yeah I know, people can be a bit too polite, it even seems rude to me!
Hope you are good... Enjoy the rest of your week.
Hello there! I just came across your blog, don't know how but glad I did... looks alright! I think ima stick around for a bit and read on... Thank you! (Wink wink! Nope, that didn't work! Lol!)
Take care now :)
Why are you blogging at work you this rude girl!
lmao.. ur too funny... i'm Canadian and we're probably second to u guys in politeness(actualy no first cos a lot of british politeness masks a slight condenscension and sarcasm)... but oyinbo ppl always give me grief whenever they fall down or hurt themselves and i say sorry... they're always like.. "you didn't know anything"... lol.. and i'm like yeah i know...(i think that ones a naija thing sha)
it's over done...facetious even.... Overwhelmed said it for me already
@Vera...of course...you're in the way...if you werent there it wouldnt have happened...lol
How far UMTHAM na wa for yoU, if they are not polite i guess you would complain, i think i prefer them being polite. The one that bothers me is when they trip or hit there leg/hand on a table/door or whatever and you say sorry and the okoko people will say oh it's not your fault!!! then you be like why did i bother but i guess like the overwhelmed naija babe said it is a naija thing to say sorry when someone hurts him or herself.
the brits are very polite--- but its a fake sort of polite. i love my crass americans... they "keeps it real"..lolol
Yes o ..my dear yankeeesss keep it real ..Brits r so damn fake .. fake smile and everything
me i don't agree with you o, you can hardly go wrong if you're polite. if nothhing else, it can ease the stress of a bad day. last thing u want when you're having a bad day etc is someone being impolite to you.
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