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What happened to manners?

by Patrick Corcoran

Created on: July 23, 2008   Last Updated: September 22, 2008

Would you mind terribly to take time and please read this?

Everywhere you go these days there seems to be an out of control use of profanity. I've heard it at restaurants, gas stations, shopping malls and even in public buildings. The English language which is the international language of commerce and aviation is being changed to a simple, common, low level form of verbal communication. What's the cause? Better yet, what's the answer to this and other forms of rude behavior?

My answer to these questions is simply that there is a complete disregard of decent principles and the lack of manners. There was a time when all women were treated like ladies and in return were expected to act accordingly. Men would never think of saying a curse word in front of a lady or a child, and today you have it being done on the radio and in recorded music. When's the last time you saw a man rise from his seat when a lady entered the room or take his hat off. Most men today won't even take their hat off when seated at the dinner table!

What happened? Well, many things. One was women's liberation and the way men responded to it. While it was right in its concept, equality, the pendulum swung completely the other way to the point that it didn't matter anymore if a lady entered a room, or was carrying heavy bags or needed a door opened. Men decided, "If they want to be treated like men, we'll treat them like men." This of course was the wrong attitude and it soon became accepted to do whatever you wanted when there was a woman present. Most women didn't want to be treated like men, they wanted equality in the workplace but the cause became distorted and most actions that were once restricted to the men's locker room are now on nighttime television.

Basic tenets of opening doors, watching what you say and cleaning up for dinner were replaced with all types of self-indulgent behavior and not just in the way women are treated.

Fundamental manners have gone by the wayside of the dinosaurs. With the loss of good manners comes the loss of respect. We hear it all the time on the street and in the media. "He dissed me!" is a vernacular for disrespect.

The funny thing is most young people who use this term wouldn't recognise respect if it hit him in the butt with a banjo!
Disrespect isn't walking on someone else's turf and it's not looking at someone the wrong way!

How many fights have been started with some young man saying, "Who are you looking at?" Many young men start fights because

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