The book isn’t bad by any means, but I think it’s important to approach it bearing in mind that it is one person’s experiences. The author’s insistence on the frequency of the f-word (“Eff,” as she writes it), for example, could be based on her country or city or could be a confirmation bias, that she notes it every time it comes up and it therefore seems ubiquitous to her. Many of her points were well taken by me, about the need for respect to strangers, and I feel that I practice them already. Her observations about manners and political correctness and people’s responses to both did provide some insight into the current political and cultural climate, where people are acting much more as individuals and shunning some aspects of community. Her comments toward the end of the text about bridging versus bonding were particularly insightful. But I also disagreed with her at several points, such as where she gets annoyed when her “thank you” is returned as “no problem” rather than “you’re welcome.” I love “no problem” and all its variations in other languages. Relatedly, I’m personally annoyed by an overuse of the words “please” and sorry,” particularly in a business context. These are situations, perhaps, where respect and deference are most called for, but the exact language is cultural, even down to regional differences. Is respect for strangers important? Yes. Is there a one-size-fits-all definition of how that looks? No. We do what we can to show respect for others, and we behave with graciousness and humility when they do not return it in the same way we would. (And then we complain to our friends about it later if necessary.)

My first book of 2014 was Lynne Truss’s Talk to the Hand and Making the Cat Laugh: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door. The subtitle explains the book’s premise.

Even if you had no idea who Truss is, you can probably guess that she is British. Bloody rudeness. Roy Peter Clark, in The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English, had mentioned Truss as one of those Grammazons, unflinchingly following strict rules of grammar regardless of the context. He is referring to her earlier book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, which I don’t think I’ve read, but I do remember the cover with a panda. That book is about grammar, though from a particular sentence I read in Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door, I’m assuming that Truss does NOT use the serial comma (also evident from her book title). It’s flat-out impossible to take someone seriously when she claims to know how to properly use grammar, and yet does not use the very necessary serial comma.

Ok, so what is this book all about? Well, basically you’ve got a fussy British lady who complains about the general rudeness of people. I think the main reason it seems so persnickety is that she’s got her British dialect and is talking about British people. Of course, the principles which she discusses are universal. But had it been an author talking about American people, I would have felt more of a relevance.

The “six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door” are:

Was That So Hard to Say?
Why Am I the One Doing This?
My Bubble, My Rules
The Universal Eff-Off Reflex
Booing the Judges
Someone Else Will Clean It Up

Reason #1 is the use of basic politeness. Respect. “Please” and “Thank you” are sufficient for most situations, but people don’t even say those words. It’s as if apology is [not] policy (my words… a nod to a certain tagline used in The X-Files).

Reason #2 is about the general state of customer service, and how there seems to be a lack of service to the customer. For instance, how many of us have called a company’s customer service line about a question or an issue with a product? And how many hoops do we have to jump through just to get to a real person, if that ever happens? Everything has an automated phone line now, and sometimes there’s no logical way to get connected to a real person. Frustrating! Especially when you’re told, “All of our agents are busy assisting other customers. Please stay on the line, and your call will be answered in the order that it was received.” Even if it’s 7am or 10pm. Sometimes I wonder, are there only two agents working in this whole company???

Reason #3 is the issue of personal space. How people will just decide, in public, what is there personal space with total disregard to others. Like cell phone conversations. How many people need to hear your business, or relationship, or generally argumentative conversations? What I find particularly irritating are those people listening to music that is so loud, I seriously wonder if the earphones are actually fully connected to the device. From the sounds of their tunes, I’ve concluded that a lot of people are a) self-induced deaf and/or b) have really bad taste in music.

Reason #4 is that people aspire to be tough and not take any crap (or well-intentioned advice) from others, but won’t do anything they perceive to be uncommon for fear of being politically-incorrect. For instance, if someone is obviously exhibiting a bothersome behavior, like smoking when in close quarters with several other unfamiliar people, it’s almost wrong and rude to be the one who says something to that person, like “Could you please not smoke here?”, because the others around you might have no problem with it, and then you’re the annoying fussy one. Oh the number of times I’ve had to try to stay quite because everyone else is just stupidly oblivious! And, of course, Truss talks about the general tendency to use “the F world” for all types of situations. Personally, I hate the use of the F word, and other swear words, because it indicates to me that these people are lacking in both communication and creativity.

Reason #5 is the disrespectful attitude towards others who maybe, just perhaps, should be given a bit of deference. For instance, on a show like American Idol, let’s say there’s a contestant who’s cute or popular with the audience for some reason, doesn’t even have to be music-related, and then the judges tell that contestant, “Hey, you sound terrible. You’re out.” The audience will then act as if the judges are in the wrong, rather than the person who clearly should not have been trying to be the next American Idol. As another example, take a student who does really poorly in school simply out of laziness or bad behavior, and the teacher calls out the student on the poor academic performance. The parents will then get in a huff and proudly proclaim how great and misunderstood their child is, and how incompetent and rude is the teacher. Basically, people are never willing to admit that they’re in the wrong, or that someone else might be more qualified to judge a certain criterion than are they, themselves.

Reason #6 is lack of willingness to take responsibility. This one really hits a note with me. One of many examples I could give: people proclaim that they don’t need to recycle/eat vegan/help the environment because their own small impact won’t make a difference. Someone else will take their place and do the altruistic thing. Or, conversely, someone else would just eat extra meat/be environmentally-destructive, thereby cancelling any benefit to being altruistic. It’s very contorted logic. It’s just a way for people to try deflecting responsibility by removing themselves from the situation and saying that they would have no impact. But really, it would behoove us all to take actions “for the common good”. None of us got to where we are in life without the help of others, so it wouldn’t hurt to give back and help out someone else for no other reason than “just because”.
So that’s it. Six reasons highlighting people’s rudeness. I generally agree with all those reasons, although I don’t think I would really like the person of Lynne Truss. She doesn’t seem very modern. But wait… does that mean that I’m also lamely old-fashioned and uncool????

I wouldn’t really recommend this book; everything you need to know is here in this book review.

The book is about manners and etiquette. "Manners," Truss writes, "are based on an ideal of empathy, of imagining the impact of one's own actions on others. They involve doing something for the sake of other people that is not obligatory and attracts no reward." So far, so good. She then goes on to quote a philosopher who wrote, "'The problem is that we have failed to distinguish between pure etiquette, which is simply a matter of arbitrary social rules designed mainly to distinguish between insiders and outsiders; and what might grandly be called quotidian ethics: the morality of our small, everyday interactions with other people.'" Also good.

From there, Truss lists her several categories where manners and etiquette are missing: From not saying please or thank you, to the lack of good punctuation and respect for private space, and to the penchant for challenging authority, on principle, or for telling people where to get off. Some of the examples make sense, such as her criticism of the "automated switchboard" with it's fake honesty and concern. Other examples just don't resonate, as in her emphasis on using the words please and thank you. Doesn't it get tiring to constantly be obligated to use those words when a nod, tone or other body language is plainly sufficient, or to hear those words when they are uttered wrongly or with dishonesty?

This is a short book and it could be much shorter.

The reason for this 2 star review is that I really enjoyed and aligned with the first half of this book but somewhere around the halfway point it seemed she just became a bitter Betty and I found it difficult to relate the way I was able to relate with her and her views in the first half.

Mostly rant. Negative attitude. I absolutely loved the author’s book, Eats Shoots and Leaves; this is nothing like it. Little of value. Read only if you lack crabby people in your life and need more negativity.

Having read 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' I expected a similar book on manners. While this does address politeness and other social behaviour, it lacks the same humour.

Still a good read, with insightful comments on the worrying state of the modern world. Manners are in decline and Truss laments these with horror. The world is getting ruder.

Overall, a funny, self-effacing rant about British manners and mores (or the lack thereof). Not really my kind of book, but society, in general, has indeed become rude, uneducated and annoying, causing many to hand-pick only a few people to relate to, and prefer to stay in.

"Manners are about showing consideration, and using empathy. But they are also about being connected to the common good; they are about being better."

This was a bit preachy, and in the end Truss couldn't help but moralize about manners being good and rudeness being bad. I'm glad she did though, it needed to be said. And it continues to need to be said until people realize that civilization, and therefore civilized people, use manners.

An amusing diversion but I really did not learn anything here. Lynne Truss reads the book, which seems to make it more fun with her wit, but really it is little more than a long rant concerning people's boorish public behavior nowadays.
I would recommend her book, "Eats, Shoots, & Leaves" though.

Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt The Door, by Lynne Truss (2005, 202pp). The purpose of this book is to explain (or rationalize) the author’s strongly held belief that, as she states on the 196th (!) page is, “Rudeness is bad. Manners are good.” Some might argue that it’s rude to force readers to wade their way through 97% of a book to learn its purpose, while others might contend that if a reader is so obtuse as to have not figured that out by page 196, s/he probably needs the book. In any event, this subject matter, especially as it is presented by this author, would have been better conveyed via a series of conversations over cups of tea or coffee (readers’ choice). I suppose that is not possible, so the book must suffice. Truss writes in a conversational style that is a bit jarring in that implicit in it are winks, elbow jabs, and the more-than-occasional roll of the eyes as well as other facial expressions. Moreover, she is British. None of that facilitated my understanding, though I believe I ‘got’ her main points. Quite rudely, her American publisher did not translate her English into American English, causing some of her witticisms to fly past me unappreciated. We should expect more from a publisher of a book about good manners. IMHO this book is not as good as Eats, Shoots and Leaves (about her intolerance of poor punctuation), but it is worth reading if you are a person who has any regard whatsoever for other people.

Author Truss brought us "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" and now brings us "Talk to the Hand.." Respect, courtesy, kindness, and consideration are discussed here. Current society all over the world is generally rude, impatient, lax, condescending, and disrespectful (I think we are all aware of this, but if we we are, then why is this problem still so prevalent?). My favorite lines include:
- "...the individual personality wastes no time bolstering its defenses"
- "... it's become fashionable never to look up to anyone, it has become nastily acceptable to look down."
- "make the right noises and you get the reward."
I come away from reading this book to think before speaking and be aware of how I come off.
I agree with the author, "no problem" is not the nicest answer, nor proper answer to when someone says "thank you." "You're welcome" is. I think society (me included) needs to soften our language, intonation, and be aware if we come off as a jerk. And if we think about it and think that "yeah that totally sounded 'jerky'," then we need to tell that person, "I am sorry that I came off that way and what I meant to say was....." This shows deference and courtesy to the other person. A sincere apology does not make one inferior (although many people think this). Instead, a sincere sorry says you care about the other person and want to show them that you care so much, you admit you were wrong. All people need to read this!!!! (especially those in the service industry!!!!)

Garbled grumpiness.