“...when a phone call competes for attention with a real-world conversation, it wins. Everyone knows the distinctive high-and-dry feeling of being abandoned for a phone call, and of having to compensate - with quite elaborate behaviours = for the sudden half-disappearance of the person we were just speaking to. 'Go ahead!' we say. 'Don't mind us! Oh look, here's a magazine I can read!' When the call is over, other rituals come into play, to minimise the disruption caused and to restore good feeling.” KnowsWorldMindLooksPersonsI CanRealPlayFeelingsWinningAttentionHalfConversationPhonesMagazinesDryRitualReal WorldAbandonedBehaviourPhone CallsDisruptionDistinctiveDisappearanceGood FeelingI Can Read Author:Lynne Truss
“The problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against which one offends at one's peril: by means of a considerable circular logic, such offences mark you as reactionary and therefore a bad person. Therefore if you say people are bad, you are bad.” PeopleIfsMeanPersonsProblemPoliticalAttentionDrawsLogicMarkAbsolutesDoctrineMannersAwkwardPerilPolitical CorrectnessCorrectnessReactionariesOffence Author:Lynne Truss
“In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets overexcited and breaks things and laughs too loudly.” HandsBigsAttentionBreakLaughingBrotherMarkPianoDaddyDeficitPractisePunctuationMummyExclamationExclamation Marks Author:Lynne Truss
“Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation.” WayAttentionRootsOriginalsAccidentsDrawingInvisibleMannersEaseEtiquetteGood MannersPunctuationFormalityDrawing Attention Author:Lynne Truss
