Manners

When I was a small boy, my parents drummed into me the importance of saying "please" when I wanted something and "thank you"  when I received it. Sometimes I would forget and my mother would snap, "What do you say?"

As far as I know the "please" and "thank you" training goes on in nearly all British homes. We followed the tradition with our own children when they were growing up.

"Have you forgotten something Ian?"

"Oh yeah, please may I leave the table?"

"And Frances. Can you remember those two little words?"

"Errr...mmm... oh - thank you Daddy!"

And now I see our granddaughters getting their "please" and "thank you" training from our daughter and son-in-law.

In a human lifetime, I guess we say "please" and "thank you" a million times each. I will not complicate matters by throwing in all the "excuse mes" and the "pardons" and "sorrys". Let's  just stick with the pleases and the thank yous.

Is it just a western thing? Do other cultures have their "please" and "thank you" equivalents - drummed in to the young from an early age? I decided to google the question and this was the AI response:-

No, not all cultures use direct equivalents of "please" and "thank you"; many express politeness, gratitude, and respect through context, tone, gestures, specific grammatical structures, or words for different levels of favour, as the need for explicit niceties often arises from anonymous interactions in individualistic societies, not small, interdependent communities. While essential in some cultures, frequent "thank yous" can be seen as odd or even insulting in others, where kindness is assumed or shown non-verbally.

What use are hollow  pleases and thank yous when they are just parroted ritualistic words? Surely they have to mean something and be delivered with genuine consideration for the listener involved.

Is it good manners to keep reminding people - usually young people - of their forgetfulness? What would folk think if the corrected child said, "To tell you the truth, I find your persistent corrections quite unmannerly for I consider the please/thank you ritual to be a cultural affectation that has filtered through generations without question and requires some re-evaluation. So would you please go away and leave me alone. Thank you so much!"