by Francesca Dent

Created on: November 22, 2009

In sociological terms, manners are the rules of conduct in accordance with the customs of a particular social group. We all know what manners are; things like saying please and thank you are the basic manners which we are all taught as young children. Yet it seems that when looking around in today's society, many people are rebelling and using rudeness to get what they want.

There once was a time which many of us will be unaware of; a time of chivalry, when men were gentlemen and the term 'ladette', which was recently coined to describe those young women who display ladish behaviour, did not exist. A time when ladies were elegant beings who took a great pride in their reputation. A time which no longer exists in mainstream society.

I understand there are exceptions to this, but for the most part, men no longer respect women. If you listen into the conversations of young men to today's society, you are likely to hear them talking about football or girls. Yet this is the order of priority: football then girls. And when they move on to the subject of girls they boast about who they have had sexual relations with and use football terms to help them in their explanations of their conquests.

Many have us have been brought up being told to respect our elders, and many of us do, but why don't our elders respect the rest of society? Again I understand that there are exceptions to this but you think about how many times you have heard an elder utter the immortal words "oh the youth of today" or "it wasn't like that in my days" or "when I was your age..." followed by a negative portrayal of the youth of today. I remember last winter when it had been snowing rather heavily and the buses were running late due to the amount of snow on the roads. The majority of the people in the queue for my bus were elderly citizens who had a bus pass for free travel - I and the other people queuing to get the bus had to pay yet those who were complain about the service were the elderly who had not only pushed their way to the front of the queue but didn't have to pay when the bus got to the station. Where were their manners there?

There are many people out there in society who have perfectly good manners, they say please and thank you, they are always polite no matter how bad their day has been; they show good etiquette, social graces and intercultural competence. It is just a shame that in my experience, these people of our society are in the minority thanks to those who are just completely rude.

Learn more about this author, Francesca Dent.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.