Saturday, April 21, 2018

無禮 有理嗎

A photo of mine showing a shiba I met at park received a comment: What kind of harness is that. I replied with some details. Few minutes later I was thinking a bit deeper than what ordinary people would do. Where in the world is the correct usage of English rergarding asking questions in a socially acceptable manner? Some decades ago I was taught to always raise questions in the format such as: May I ask for the info? Would you please let me know...? Mind if I ask ...? Nowadays those lessons seem to be useless to many people. I used to have a FB friend who was a model. She posted a photo and received a commnet asking: Where is it? She replied literally: You should (at least) click LIKE before you ask questions or leave comments. The guy did not buy it. Instead he kept defending his rude behavior till he got blocked indefinitely. Well, I did have a good laugh. She might be a bit over-reacted. Still, it shed some light on the way people, strangers in particular, communicate in this society. 我常想, 這是個魯莽無禮的社會. 以下對上, 或有求於人, 竟會用 我要詢問 這字樣. (寫完這篇,電視節目轉台時,在一談話型節目,一位來賓說道,【詢問】媽祖幾次,都喬不定時間。牧師會詢問 主耶穌嗎? 神父會去詢問教宗嗎) 說話的藝術與基本禮貌,真的沒被重視。幾年前馬政府時代的勞動部長, 南下辦公聽宣導座談. 一位大學校長發言完, 竟然拎著皮包直接走人. 如果我是部長, 我會馬上叫住提醒 上行下效 這成語. Rremarks: When I was 31 or 32 years of age, I lived at Miami. My apartment was in a high rise building with many senior citizens with incredible financial stability. Most were very nice and always moved slowly. Only in rare occasions we met old folks without good manner. The woman I was dating at that time happned to be my neighbor. She must be unlucky because she often bumped into them. We were in the elevator with senior citizens in that category once. Suddenly she could not help but spoke word by word: Just being old does not give you the right of being rude. Gee! classic. Even after nearly 30 years I still remember the look on their faces when they heard that sentence. She was taller and older than I was. She worked out 3 hours at least 5 days a week. Poor old folks stood there speechless.