ANST - Question...

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

Pug, have you read Miss Manners?  If not, please let me commend those
who raised you (if that's not impertient).  I recommend Miss Manners
to all.  She has helped me with such social polish that I have, and
she's quite entertaining too.

"Pug Bainter" <pug at pug.net> wrote:
>   When one person does something wrong, they are unchivalric and need to
>   be taken to task for it. Right?
> 
>   People then decide that they are the judge and jury and must bring
>   this public as rudely as possible to teach the person a lesson, and
>   thus being unchivalric themself. Right?

Welcome to "manners" in the SCA.  However, formal manners does that
*except* for the "bring this public as rudely as possible" part.

>   First, two wrongs don't make anything right.

As Miss Manners puts it, "Nothing excuses being rude, not even as a
reply to rudeness."  (Well, I'm paraphrasing.)

>   Second, how does one properly take someone to task that is behaving
>   inappropriately?
> 
>   I have always assumed that talking plainly and calmly directly to
>   people would work most of the time. When that doesn't work, using
>   plain and obvious examples of why it is bad has always worked. There
>   are of course those individuals who will do as they will no matter
>   what. There is nothing we can do about them except socially ignore
>   them until they go away.

According to Miss Manners, you generally *can't* "take them to task".
That is reserved for their parents while they are growing up.
However, if you're at a public establishment or party and you can't
work it out with the person directly (or don't care to, in some
cases), you can ask the business owner or host to intervene, and they
*do* have authority.

Miss Manners has a few articles on how to object.  They do start quite
calm-sounding, but there are some warning phrases that those who knew
formal manners would recognize (I think "perhaps you don't realize
that ..." is one of the intermediate-strength ones, and "How dare
you!" is a complete declaration of war as an utter last resort).

Socially ignoring them is called the "cut direct".  Alas, so few
people understand it or the phrase "Sir / Madam, I do not know you"
that goes with it.

Actually, there are *two* options, at the very least.  You can ignore
them until they go away, or you can go away yourself.

    I have the honor to remain, Sir,
        Your most humble and ob'd't Servant,
            Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel.   Reply to tmcd at crl.com;
    if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com is my work account.
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