Posted on 04/06/2005 3:34:28 PM PDT by quidnunc
London – When Mark Duckworth started working at grocery stores in the late 1980s, customers still uttered pleasantries like "good morning," "please," and "thank you."
Sixteen years later, shoppers use a rather different lexicon. There are muttered insults, impatient outbursts, and all manner of curses not fit for print. Some even resort to physical abuse, like spitting, shoving, or punching.
"I was getting abuse every day," says Mr. Duckworth, who left his job due to a knee injury inflicted by a would-be shoplifter. Customers are "getting ruder and ruder," he adds. "The level of respect in society has just gone."
Duckworth is not alone. From doctors to train drivers, teachers to call-center staff, millions of British workers face rising levels of anger, impatience, and discourtesy from the public they serve.
Whatever happened to the mannerly isle full of polite souls who ask about each other's health over a cup of tea? Some observers say Britain has grown vulgar only in recent years. Others say things were never so genteel.
"There has been a gradual coarsening of our society," says Dr. Colin Gill, a psychologist at Leeds University. "Having said that, elements of society have always been incredibly coarse in this country, and it's just becoming more obvious now because the media actually tend to celebrate it."
Evidence of what they media have started calling "rude Britain" is everywhere, from surly service to road rage, noisy neighbors to cellphone selfishness.
A sales clerk in Britain is physically or verbally abused every minute, union officials charge. In schools, thousands of teachers are rebuked, threatened, or assaulted by parents every year.
On Saturday nights, town centers are often a no-go area of brawling youths. At a soccer match last weekend, two stars were sent off for fighting — and they were on the same team.
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The outbreak of rudeness seems to have coincided with UK's decision to ban all guns. An armed society is more polite.
Ya ban guns and look what happens.
Great minds...
They can get away with stuff there that would get them a royal ass kicking here in the US.
"An Armed society is a polite society."
You beat me by 30 minutes.
"Rude Britain"? You must be mistaken, It's the "Ugly American" that we're supposed to be complaining about.
Where I live, even the Post Office employees are polite, bless their hearts.
The pendulum swings wider in countries outside the US in the West. Ironically (for the Poms), inside today's real America itself, particularly in heartland or even marginally blue big suburban areas in blue states, they appear quite a lot like 1930s Britain when compared with contemporary Britain.
I have watched far too many TV series like "Looking After Jo Jo" and "Footballers' Wives" to know what British television today is like. And it would horrify any mid-Victorian Briton.
I would track this more with the decline of Christianity in the UK.
We can get BBC America here in the US, and they show a lot of sitcoms and mysteries.
What I have noticed is that it's not uncommon — especially in the mysteries — to have no sympathetic characters — none!
A series of PD James' Adam Dalgliesh mysteries ran here a number of years back on PBS, and I swear to God that I was pulling for all the characters — including the hero — to get snuffed!
Absolutely! I think Wycliffe (a police series set in Cornwall) was one of the last respectful TV series produced in Britain. There may be bits like "The Lost Prince" (a drama about the obscure Prince John, younger brother to Edward VIII and George VI and uncle of the Queen) or "A Dance to The Music of Time" that are brilliant, but most others could just be characterized by one word: garbage.
And it is even more so than the famously trashy US TV series.
The British seem to becoming more Frenchified.
Pub food has gone to hell too !
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