Modern Manners 5

DO
Invite the single, widowed and divorced.
Drop the subject if someone doesn't want to discuss it.
Project your voice when addressing a roomful of people without a microphone.

DON’T
Post revolting pictures on Facebook and Twitter.
Keep telling everybody you’re from Yorkshire.
Moan about others all the time.
Make sweeping statements about groups.
Force anyone to do something they don’t want to do – or are frightened of.

Tell “funny” anecdotes that go on for ten minutes.
Turn your life into a succession of “funny” anecdotes.
Tell "funny" anecdotes about family members.
Repeat entire sketches from the TV or radio, word-for-word.
Tell the kind of jokes that start “Have you heard this one?”
Hold an entire conversation in a comedy Yorkshire accent.

Tell friends too much about each other before they meet.
Psychoanalyse your friends and family – especially to their face.
Put everybody else in the wrong.
Discuss the party in front of the one person who hasn't been invited.
Guilt your flatmates by washing up their pots and pans while they're still eating.
Tell people off for something they would have done if you hadn't told them not to in time.
Keep mispronouncing an unfamiliar name.
Give people nicknames.
Push someone’s boundaries for years.
Live other's lives for them.
Try and train your friends and family to be more proactive, or independent, or whatever.
Set traps for visitors.
Lend visitors unflattering sunhats.

Disparage someone else’s allergy.
Snap or video a disabled person in a public place.
Grab the arm or belongings of a blind person – ask them if they need help.
Tell anyone that they don’t look disabled enough for a wheelchair.

Turn any conversation into a lament about “kids today” (or "parents today" who fail to teach their kids manners).

Don’t sit on people’s cars! (@TheRoyalButler)
Don’t tell the bereaved to smile, or cheer up, or any other asinine BS. (@Living400lbs)

Mrs Gillette, of the White House Cook Book, 1887, explains why you shouldn’t cut or bite your roll at dinner, but tear off a piece and butter only that piece. You don’t want to leave your buttered roll on your side plate with a bite mark everybody can see. She also adds that you shouldn’t mix the food on your plate, or drop pieces of bread into your gravy.


SOCIAL MEDIA
I have an aunt who is mostly cool but anytime I posted something on Facebook, she would correct me. Publicly. (@KaleidoscopeJen)

"Take care how you comment on public FB groups – your family and friends may see it, even if you’ve blocked them!", says Samantha Upward.

"Remember what I said before about not correcting your family’s anecdotes – or their social media posts?", says Caroline Stow Crat. "And if your friends keep posting annoying memes on Facebook, click on the three grey dots and block the source. And you know what else I find boring? Competitive ignorance of popular culture. You know, 'I haven’t heard of any of the contestants on this year’s Strictly!'"

"And competitive refusal to use new technology," says Sam. “ 'I’m so refined I don’t watch Youtube!' And I met an academic who told me his Wikipedia page was out of date, but it wasn’t worth anybody’s time and effort to update it."

"That usually means “I don’t know how”!"

"I bossily thought I'd do it for him – but it had been updated, he just hadn't bothered to look!"

More here.
More here, and links to the rest.