Lisa Vankula Donovan
techmanPardonnez-moi, where have manners gone?
July 13th 2010 23:01
This leads me to the inspiration for this week’s column.
A few days ago I had to get a few things for dinner so I headed to the grocery store. I’m not sure if it was the time of day, or divine intervention (helping me to write my column) that had something to do with the fact that the store was chock full of shoppers, all apparently in a hurry. It was during this shop that I noticed something.
Whatever happened to the phrase, “excuse me”?
After running into people (or being run into) a few times with not so much as a sideways, apologetic glance, I realized not one of them, at fault or not, had returned my sheepish, “Excuse me”.
It started to get to me, but then I saw my chance. Maybe there could be some sort of experiment here; some sort of citizen journalism opportunity I was passing up. So I decided to go with the old gut and start what I call the, “Bump and Apologize Experiment in Integrity”.
I wasn’t necessarily purposely bumping into people (very much) but just testing out what factors brought out a reciprocal "excuse me", as opposed to the sideways “Well, excuuuuse me” glance; or the “I’m choosing the look the other way to avoid the fact that I bumped into you and might have to actually utter the words ‘excuse me' " tactic.
At first I went with the everyday apology of “sorry”. When this garnered no response, I got a bit more creative. I tried, “pardon me”, “my fault”, and “oops” in combination with a shoulder shrug for added effect, all to no avail.
It became apparent I was going to have to up the ante.
So finally, after about five or six run-ins, “mi scusi” (Italian for ‘excuse me’) got a return of “no worries” from a nice, elderly gentlemen who looked like he was about to start up a conversation, perhaps in Italian, so I bailed quickly.
It seemed the more creative I got, like “excusez moi” (French) or “perdon” (Spanish) for example, the more likely I was to get a response.
I guess this little experiement shows that perhaps civility has gone to the wayside when dealing with our neighbour. And either we are more respectful to people from other countries (and we should be respectful) or we are afraid they will think we in this country are rude if we don't respond. Either way, is it really that hard to just say "excuse me"?
And maybe people will think a bit before just walking away after bumping into someone. You never know, they could be an undercover columnist.
Zen thought for the day:
A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.-Buddha
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Comment by True1
A Day in LA - Things to do in Los Angeles County
The Friendly Vegetarian
breeze
Very funny post. It is very interesting that people wanted to give a good impression of their country to those who they felt were visiting.
Love your new picture, by the way