Did seem to be a peculiarly English response. COMMENT

George Orwell said that the English are ‘inveterate gamblers, drink as much beer as their wages will permit, are

devoted to bawdy jokes and use probably the foulest language in the world’, but he nevertheless concluded,

without contradiction, that ‘The gentleness of the English civilization is perhaps its most marked characteristic’.

As evidence of this, along with the good-temperedness of bus-conductors and unarmed policemen, he cited the

fact that ‘In no country inhabited by white men is it easier to shove people off the pavement’. Quite so, and if

your shove appears to be genuinely accidental, they might even apologize as they stumble into the gutter.

You may be wondering why the English seem to assume that any accidental collision is our fault, and

immediately accept the blame for it by apologizing. If so, you are making a mistake. The reflex apology is just

that: a reflex – an automatic, knee-jerk response, not a considered admission of guilt. This is a deeply ingrained

rule: when any inadvertent, undesired contact occurs (and to the English, almost any contact is by definition

undesired), we say ‘sorry’.

In fact, any intrusion, impingement or imposition of any kind, however minimal or innocuous, generally requires

an apology. We use the word ‘sorry’ as a prefix to almost any request or question: ‘Sorry, but do you know if this

train stops at Banbury?’ ‘Sorry, but is this seat free?’ ‘Sorry – do you have the time?’ ‘Sorry, but you seem to be

sitting on my coat.’ We say ‘sorry’ if our arm accidentally brushes against someone else’s when passing through a

crowded doorway; even a ‘near miss’, where no actual physical contact takes place, can often prompt an

automatic ‘sorry’ from both parties. COMPARE WITH OTHER CULTURES We often say ‘sorry’ when we mean ‘excuse me’ (or ‘get out of my way’),

such as when asking someone to move so we can get past them. An interrogative ‘sorry?’ means ‘I didn’t quite

hear what you said – could you repeat it?’ (or ‘what?’). Clearly, all these sorries are not heartfelt, sincere

apologies. Like ‘nice’, ‘sorry’ is a useful, versatile, all-purpose word, suitable for all occasions and circumstances.

When in doubt, say ‘sorry’. Englishness means always having to say you’re sorry. EXPRESS YOUR OPINION

Rules of Ps and Qs

The English may not speak much on public transport, but when they do open their mouths, the words you are

most likely to hear, apart from ‘sorry’, are ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ (the latter often shortened to ‘’anks’ or ‘’kyou’).

During the research for this book, I made a point of counting these Ps and Qs. Whenever I took a bus, I would sit

or stand as near as possible to the driver (outside central London, most buses nowadays do not have conductors

– passengers buy their tickets directly from the driver) to find out how many of the people boarding the bus said

‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when purchasing their ticket. I found that the majority of English passengers mind their

Ps and Qs, and most of the drivers and conductors also say ‘thank you’ when accepting money for tickets.

Not only that, but many passengers also thank the bus driver again when they get off at their stop. This

practice is less common in very big cities, but in smaller cities and towns it is the norm. On a typical short bus

journey from a council estate on the outskirts of Oxford to the city centre, for example, I noted that all of the

passengers said ‘’kyou’ or ‘’anks’ as they alighted from the bus – with the noticeable exception of a group of

foreign students, who had also omitted the ‘please’ when buying their tickets. Many tourists and other visitors

have commented to me on the politeness of English passengers, and from my own cross-cultural research, I know

that this degree of courtesy is unusual. In other countries, the only circumstances in which I have found people

regularly thanking bus drivers were in very small communities where they knew the driver personally.

Having said that, I should point out that there is nothing particularly warm or friendly about English Ps and Qs

– they are generally muttered, usually without eye contact or smiles. Just because we are distinctively polite and

courteous in our public conduct does not mean that we are good-natured, generous, kind-hearted people. We

just have rules about Ps and Qs, which most of us observe, most of the time. Our scrupulous pleasing and

thanking of bus drivers, conductors, taxi drivers and the like is another manifestation of the ‘polite egalitarianism’

discussed earlier – reflecting our squeamishness about drawing attention to status differences, and our

embarrassment about anything to do with money. We like to pretend that these people are somehow doing us a

favour, rather than performing a service for financial reward.

And they collude with us in this pretence. Taxi drivers, in particular, expect to be thanked as well as paid at

the end of their journey, and feel offended if the passenger simply hands over the money – although they are

usually tolerant towards foreigners who ‘don’t know any better’, as one London cabbie put it when I questioned

him on the subject. ‘With most English people, it’s just automatic,’ he explained. ‘They say “thanks” or “cheers”

or something when they get out – and you say “thanks” back. You get the occasional rude bastard who doesn’t,

but most people just automatically say “thanks”.’

DO THE EXAMPLES OF POLITE BEHAVIOUR ABOVE EVOKE ANY POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE ASSOCIATIONS FROM YOUR OWN LIFE EXPERIENCE?

PRESENTATION: MORE FACTS ABOUT ENGLISH COURTESY.