Wiretap - Learn Some Manners

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

Do you clip your fingernails in public? Chew with your mouth open? Interrupt people? We speak with manners expert Henry Alford about etiquette in the modern world.

It's summer, and it's going to be a hot one in Canadian politics. I'm Catherine Cullen. Join me and some of CBC's best political reporters as we bring you all new summer programming, focused on everything from negotiating with Donald Trump to Canada's climate goals, to the future of the Senate, and more. We'll talk to the chief of the defense staff and a top senator. We'll visit the Maritimes to learn about the future of energy production there. Catch the House Saturdays wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everybody. I'm J.B. Poisson, and I host Frontbron. It's Canada's most listened to Daily News Podcast.

Just the other day, we were in a story meeting talking about how we can barely keep up with what's going on in Canada and the world right now. And like, it's our job to do that. So if you are looking for a one-stop shop for the most important and interesting news stories of the day, we've got you. Stop doom scrolling. Follow Frontburner instead. This is a CBC podcast. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and you're listening to Wiretack. on CBC Radio 1, today's episode, Learn Some Manners, in which pet peeves are aired, pet poodles are trained, and politeness is pooh-poohed.

I hate it when I let someone into traffic and they do not acknowledge my selfless gesture with a wave. I hate it when physically able people push the automatic door open. I hate it when people walk in through the exit doors at the supermarket. I hate it when people say, yep, instead of, you're welcome. I hate it when people say, no offense, but, and then say something offensive. I hate it when people don't put their shopping carts away and leave them rolling around parking lots. I hate it when someone gives you the just a minute finger while using their smartphone. I hate it when you run into an old friend and ask how they're doing, and they don't ask you in return.

I hate it when people cough or sneeze into their hands. I hate it when I'm told that I have bad manners. That's just rude. I hate it when I see a car race through a red light, only to see it pull into a McDonald's drive through a block later. I hate it when you catch someone picking their nose, and they look at you like. you're the one doing something wrong. I hate when I get caught picking my nose. I hate it when people don't refill the britta.

I hate it when people just won't shut up about the things they hate. When we hear the word manners, we always think it means what not to do, right? And I feel like ideally there could be a more proactive. This is Henry Alford, author of the book, Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That, A Modern Guide to Manners. I spoke with him about manners, and what might be a better way to approach them. I don't know. I guess I would fall back on Samuel Johnson's definition of good manners, which is fictitious benevolence,

that it's sort of like a little, it's a little bit of theater that you have to put on. We don't want to see you in your raw, genuine state. We want you to amp it up and hit your marks. What inspired you to write this book? Oh, it started with my reverse apology campaign. I was at a grocery store in my neighborhood in New York City, and the gal at the cash register dropped my apple and then put it in my bag without saying anything. So I thought, hey, I'll apologize for her.

So I said, I'm sorry, and she said nothing. And I said, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to drop my apple like that, at which point she sort of, you know, stared off into the mid-distance, as if receiving instructions from outer space. So it started this like six-week-long period in my life where I would say out loud the apologies that other people owed me. You know, you were being, I'm sorry, I'm cutting you off here, but I just, you know what, I'm not going to cut you off.

Sorry, continue. Yes, oh, I should have a little bell for each time you offend me during this interview, shouldn't I? So anyway, you're saying you were encountering all these bad manners. Bad manners are pandemic. You can find them anywhere in the world. You know, it's interesting. I think you find them least often in tiny communities. Like go to an island.

That's where manners are really good. because there's so much accountability. If there are only 20 of you living on the island, you can't get away with much. Of which, I mean, one of the surprising things that you mentioned in your book is how prison is actually a good place to learn manners. Yeah. Well, I mean, if I said to you, you know, cutthroat attention to detail and hierarchical status, you might think I'm talking about an Edith Wharton novel, but no, in fact, I'm talking about, about prison. I interviewed a prisoner and said, can you discuss some of the manners specific

to prisons? And this guy went off on like a three-minute screed about never go to the bathroom when someone else is standing within three feet of you. You never get more than five or six inches behind someone in a line unless you're forced to. Whenever you get up from a dinner table, you wrap, you knock three times on the table. And what's that about? I think it's about not making sudden movements. Another place with very specific codes of conduct, as you discovered, on a recent trip there, is Japan. Yeah.

Well, that is the Fort Knox of the World Manors Reserve. for you know for good or bad they put such a premium on decorum there that it's almost like a jigsaw puzzle for outsiders to try to figure out what's going on sometimes you know there's no tipping there so my boyfriend and i had lunch in Tokyo one day and we left the equivalent of 11 cents by mistake on our table we left the restaurant and we were two blocks away and we heard these feet running after us, and it was the waitress, with the, you know, 20 yen or whatever that we had left accidentally. And, I mean, you don't even have to go as far as Japan to encounter different kinds of customs. I live in Montreal, and whenever I visit Toronto, I'm always surprised by how no one lines up for the bus there.

Like, everyone just rushes in when the bus arrives, which I find really interesting. Well, I mean, that's why 21st century manners are so kind of. complicated, you know, it's no longer the case that you can just have an Emily Post list of dues and don'ts. I feel like every day the average person walks through about five or six different manners microclimates, right? And you have to keep asking yourself, well, can I answer my cell phone here? Can I swear here? And so I think the takeaway is, is, you know, let the locals establish the politic and then conform or fit in. So where do you draw the line?

Like, how far should you go to display good manners? Like, I'm thinking of a story you tell in the book that involves wiping down the toilet seat in a public washroom, even though you've not used the toilet seat? Yeah. I do feel like life is a public bathroom, and we are all perpetually inheriting the toilet seat. So, yeah, I am someone who is putting together a big wad of toilet paper and then wiping off the seat even if I didn't use that, John. And is your sense of good manner something that you were brought up with? Because, I mean, like, I remember when I was a kid, my parents seemed to just have their own code of behavior entirely.

like my mother would take me grocery shopping and if she wanted half a dozen eggs she would just tell me to like rip the the egg carton right in half and just you were ripping the cardboard box in half yeah wow go mom she she has a lot of espree that's a polite word for it we did a thing where if there was a bakery and a grocery store my mom would get a loaf of bread out of the oven and then you'd go get a stick of butter and unwrap that stick of butter and then just start dragging the bread through the butter as you were shopping. And then she would pay for the butter, or no, now the butter was a part of the bread? Well, it depended. If you could get through that entire thing of butter, that might be your little secret. Well, normally at this point in the conversation, I would just bang down without even saying goodbye or thanking the person on the other end. But after this, I thank you very much. I thank you, Jonathan.

This is totally fun. As it probably was for a lot of people, my mother was the first person who really taught me about manners. During a recent car trip, I spoke with her and my father about matters of social etiquette. Call it a refresher course, if you will. One of my first queries? Supposing you're in a store, and there's only one sale item left, and you and someone else are both reaching for it at the same time. What do you do?

Oh, my God, I'd probably tear it out of her hands, you know, me for a sale. Really, would you? Oh, yeah, for a sale, I'd kill somebody. Yeah, if I really, really wanted it, and I thought it was very important, and it was a fantastic deal, oh, I'd make sure I got it. But then let's say you got into an altercation with the person, and then later on you're at a party

and that same person is there and good friends with the host, how would you deal with that situation? I would die. I would want to kill myself. It would be terrible, terrible. I'd feel so embarrassed. It's terrible. Dad, what do you do if you're at a party and you're introduced to somebody

who earlier you had gotten into an altercation with? Yes, we did meet once before, I'd say. Well, let's say the guy was like, yeah, we did meet before. This guy practically clawed a pair of socks that were on sale out of my hands at the shopping mall earlier. Oh, is that right? I really don't remember, but if you say so, I guess I did. He says, let's say the guy wasn't as kind of receptive to letting the bygones be bygones. Well, because things had gotten really ugly.

I mean, you had like had to sort of shoulder this guy out of your way. in order to get the last of these tube socks. Well, I guess I shouldn't have gotten so passionate about a pair of socks, but, you know, these things happen, and, you know, I want to draw myself. I don't want to dredge up some stupid memories about a pair of socks that I happen to beat you out for. I'll send you a pair in the mail.

Give me your address if it's going to bother you that much. I mean, I can get nasty, too, if this guy's going to get nasty. And if he gave you his address, would you ask you? actually send him the socks in the mail no why should I and I'm enjoying him by the way they're very they're warm they're comfortable and they fit into my shoes perfectly and they're good-looking too that's why I fought so hard for them you would taunt him well a little bit I guess because he's being petty I might as well get down to pettiness with him you know and if the guys like I'm perfectly prepared to forget all about it I just want you to drop those

socks in the mail for me like you like you offered you want them that badly you'll get them would you wash them first of course I would I mean I'm I'm not an animal let's say you're on a crowded elevator and you know you're just waiting for your floor and it's pretty quiet in there and all of a sudden you let out a burp yeah you mean it just came out uncontrolled suddenly? Yeah. I'd be very embarrassed, but I'd say, excuse me, I'm sorry.

So you would actually acknowledge it? Yeah. If it's loud enough, I mean, people are going to hear it. So I say, excuse me, I've got some stomach problems. Maybe I ate something that didn't agree with me. And it had a disagreeable effect on me, and I just belched. I just couldn't control it. Excuse me.

Wait, so you would explain all that to the... No, no. explain all that i just say i'm not feeling well this morning excuse me none of that business i just say i'm i belch because i don't didn't feel well i don't feel well that's all i realize we're in close quarters here in this elevator it's it's uncomfortable for you people but i'm sorry While you might think my parents' tutelage would be all I'd ever need to navigate the world of manners, as a kid, there was something else I found helpful, not to mention completely fascinating. And that was a comic about two kids named Goofus and Gallant.

Goofus and Gallant debuted in 1946 in a magazine for kids called Highlights, and in the comic, two panels are shown, each depicting the same social scenario. On the left, you had the little boy, Goofus, doing something the selfish and loudish way, and on the right you had Gallant, doing the same thing, the correct, socially responsible way. For example, here's one from 1961, where we find Goofus in his father's office snatching some important-looking papers off the desk and saying to his friend, here are some things on Daddy's desk that we can play with. while beside it in the next panel you see gallant talking to his friend and saying i never touch anything that's on daddy's desk unless he says i may

or here's another one where we see goof is on the left telling his mother to sew a button for him while gallant on the right is shown putting his arm around his mother and politely asking will you please sew on this button maybe gallant was the one you were supposed to emulate But Goofus was the one you flipped open the magazine to see, the one who had pizzazz, the one who seemed like he'd be more fun to hang out with. Having grown up with these two little boys as role models, I've always wondered what would have become of them once they'd grown up, once life social scenarios became more complicated than just doing what Mummy and Daddy told them. As a mild-mannered gallant type myself, I picture Goofis getting all the breaks, living large, doing as he pleases. But I'd like to imagine that one day, Gallant would have his revenge.

My name's Ronnie, and I went to school with both Goofus and Gallant. It was weird. They started at our school at the exact same time. Heath grade. Everyone thought they were brothers, but it turns out their fathers would just transfer at the same time

to the cereal plant in town. Gallant sits down in the front row and starts sucking up to Mr. Anderson, the English teacher. Volunteers for everything, like milk monitoring, all that nerd stuff. I'm Ted. I worked with Galen for two years. That freak belonged to the cult of manners. Talk about a true believer. I wrote an airplane with him once, and he wouldn't start eating his meal until everyone was served. My name's Sheila. I was classmates with Goofus back in high school. My memory of Goofus is that people saw what they wanted to.

I was drawn to him because I sensed he was hurting inside. That's why he put up that wall and was rude. I knew they'd find a way to make him pay, though. They always do. My name is Natalie. I'm a former classmate. Gallant was one of the few mature guys in our high school, sensitive. We used to talk about James Taylor during lunch. I thought he was the perfect gentleman, and of course my parents loved him.

But when someone's that polite, to the point of having that Mooney quality, it gets to you. It finally dawned on me that he used that politeness as a way of controlling me. That was what it was all about. He followed the rules because it gave him the advantage. My name is Paul, and I went to college with Gallant. Gallant just didn't get it when it came to relating to people. He'd walk into a party and suck all the air out of the room. He'd say words the proper way that no one normal ever does.

He'd say things like, don't act immature. Well, there's this one night. and I'm walking to dinner with him and another student, a friend from England, and we're ragging on each other. He's calling me Yank, and I'm calling him Limey. Gallant breaks in to inform us that Limey comes from the British Navy, eating limes to avoid scurvy, blah, blah, blah. Gee, thanks, Gallant.

Dork. Gowan was the total company man. There's not a buzzword he didn't use to death. We're at a strategy meeting one day, and he actually says, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I had to avoid making eye contact with Tony, another coworker, because I knew we would both lose it and get in trouble.

My name's Laura. I worked with Gallant. I don't really understand what pushed Gallant over the edge, but what happened that night was a disgrace. It was supposed to be a nice event for charity. So he was served on the right rather than the left. I mean, who even pays attention to that stuff, especially at a fundraiser? It's weird how everything came full circle, though. I mean, how weird is it that Goofus, of all people,

was the one assigned to serve that table? My name is Dean. I was serving with Goofus that night. Goofus told me in the kitchen he had a bad feeling about that night. It was weird because he's not usually superstitious. I was still in there putting garnishes on the plates when I heard the altercation. I just thought someone was getting chewed out for dropping a tray or something. I'm David Shipley, Deputy Mayor.

I was at the next table. Everything's normal. The waiters are bringing the entrees out and whisking the salads away. Suddenly, this nice-looking man at their table explodes in rage. He screams out, Right is wrong. You never serve a gentleman on the right. The poor server's just looking at him in shock.

And then before anyone can move, he puts one hand on top of the server's head, the other on his jaw, and just snaps his neck, Delta Force style. Then he sits back down and puts his napkin in his lap. George here. I work with Gal. I mean, wow, a life sentence.

Not sure Gallant's the type to last very long on the inside. But I can definitely imagine him being very helpful with the other inmates, making chore wheels, making bunk beds and all that. I'm Harry Cemetery Custodian. Goofus's tombstone is not marked well and it's hard to find, but the teenage kids have started making pilgrimages to it. They go there and they get drunk and weed. I find their beer cans and wine bottles along with flowers and notes saying stuff like

you spoke truth to power and they killed you for it. I'm thinking you want to make them out to be your hero, go crazy, I don't care. Just don't leave your crap all over the ground for me to clean up. Didn't anybody ever teach these kids any manners? For the gallants of the world, the strain of constant politeness can often be a burden too heavy to bear. Luckily, there are goofices out there to remind us of the pleasure one can take and being barbaric to the bone. Hello. I went ahead and did a little demographic research digging on your behalf, and I found out some startling things.

What's that? You know how for years you thought your main demographic you were reaching was moms 35. to 60. Well, I mean... Well, it turns out you're wildly wrong. Because... Moms don't like you. Turns out kids don't like you. Dads don't like you. What do you come by this information, these statistics? If you want

to, I can send you all these spreadsheets, but they're just going to depress you. The things people said were very hurtful. Trust me, I'm saving your feelings when I tell you that. Why? Why? Now, luckily, there is a silver lining here. Oh, what's that? That while you have a number of demographics of people who hate you, can't stand you...

Why do you say can't... Find your voice like a sharp pick through the eye, it turns out you have one solid, reliable demographic that loves you. Let's pitch the show to them. Let's focus the show toward them. Well, this is what I've been telling you for years now. I've been saying that I should be doing the college circuits. Not colleges. College students hate you. It's people's pets, dogs specifically. Some cats, mostly dogs. What, what, how did, would... The show is on a Saturday afternoon. Owners have things to do on Saturday afternoons, right? They leave the house, they leave the radio on to keep their pets company.

You're telling me that my show is heard by dogs more than people. Consistently high ratings with dogs, yeah. They may not have chosen to listen to you, but they seem to enjoy it. That's what the data suggests. How can they tell if these dogs are enjoying my show? They're the only ones who aren't complaining to the bosses at the CBC. Now, if you would add in a component of your show where, say, you train dogs, now you might have a different advertising campaign. You could say, listen to Wiretap.

Your dog might just learn a thing or two. So you're saying that rather than craft monologues... Sit back for a minute. Close your eyes. Imagine what your radio show could be like. Show open. There's Jonathan Goldstein wiretap. Suddenly,

Shik, shik, shi, shi, that's a bowl of dog food shaking. Every dog across the land is going to know what it means. Now, you've got their attention. Mm-hmm. Now you can teach him some tricks. Sit down, roll over, play dead. Sit, boy, sit. That's a good boy.

Good boy. Good boy. That way, when the owners come home, they find their dogs are well-behaved. They're going to tune into your show every week when they leave the house because they're going to come home and their dog will be like sitting or trained or making them blue-agave syrup in their morning smoothie, whatever you want. They look around the house and they're like, wait a minute, who grouted the tub? And the dog just looks at them and is like, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Oh, my goodness. It must be because of that Jonathan Goldstein show I tuned into the train you had to grout in my tub. I'll be sure to tune in next week. Look, I'm not catering my show to dogs. You think so small. This is not about dogs, Johnny. There's going to be the full spectrum of pets, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, you name it. What about people listeners?

What about people? You tried them and struck out. Pretty soon we're going to get you up into the higher-order primates, and then we'll get you back into people in no time. I was also thinking about it open up a new segment like Mailbag from the Crazy Cat Lady. Should be like your weather segment. A little lighthearted fun. I don't like this idea. We're going to have a through line of tension between you and the crazy cat lady.

Will they end up together? Won't they end up together? Me and the cat lady. Yeah, you and the cat lady. You're going to be considered a pioneer. They're going to write books about you in a thousand years. They're going to say, this is the first guy who made radio for dogs. I don't want to devote my career to talking to dogs on the radio. There's not an untapped market.

You know how MC Hammer got to start? More with the MC Hammer. By dancing at the zoo. He didn't have the hubris like you do to start right off working for humans. Really? They're really, really undignified. I don't want to do a radio show. If you're doing now, you're raising your voice. But we're going to EQ it and get you right.

Right into the dog frequency sweet spot. No, no, that's not what I'm trying to do. It's still got to go a few octaves higher. We can use the electronics to get you there. I don't like this idea. You would have made a very sweet castrata. I really, really did. Get a little higher.

Gregor, it's really higher. On Wiretap today, you heard Buzz and Dina Goldstein, Gregor Erlick, and Henry Alford, author of, Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? You also heard Goofus Gallant Rochamon by Jim Stallard, a version of which first appeared in McSweeney's. Special thanks to John Tielli, James Irwin, and the men and women of CBC Montreal, for reading it, and for also reading the bad manners gripes you heard at the beginning of today's show. They were submitted by our listeners. Wiretap is produced by Mirabirdwin Tonic, Crystal Duhain, and me, Jonathan Goldstein.

For more CBC podcasts, go to CBC.ca slash podcasts.