Talk to the Hand. Lynne Truss

       Introduction: When Push Comes to Shove

      If you want a short-cut to an alien culture these days, there is no quicker route than to look at a French phrase book. Not because the language is different, but because the first lesson you will find there usually takes place in a shop.

      “Good morning, madam.”

      “Good morning, sir.”

      “How may I help you?”

      “I would like some tomatoes/eggs/postage stamps please.”

      “Of course. How many tomatoes/eggs/postage stamps would you like?”

      “Seven/five/twelve, thank you.”

      “That will be six/four/two Euros. Do you have the exact money?”

      “I do.”

      “Thank you, madam.”

      “Thank you, sir. Good day!”

      “Good day!”

      Now the amazing thing is, this formal and civil exchange actually represents what happens in French shops. French shopkeepers really say good morning and goodbye; they answer questions; they wrap things ever so nicely; and when it’s all over, they wave you off like a near relation. There is none of the dumb, resentful shrugging we English shoppers have become so accustomed to. Imagine an English phrase book for French visitors, based on the same degree of verisimilitude – let’s call it “Dans le magasin”.

      “Excuse me, do you work here?”

      “What?”

      “I said, excuse me, do you work here?”

      “Not if I can help it, har, har, har.”

      “Do you have any tomatoes/eggs/postage stamps?”

      “Well, make your mind up, that’s my mobile.”

      This book has quite a modest double aim: first, to mourn, without much mature perspective or academic rigour, the apparent collapse of civility in all areas of our dealings with strangers; then to locate a tiny flame of hope in the rubble and fan it madly with a big hat. Does this project have any value? Well, in many ways, no. None at all. First, it is hardly original or controversial to declare oneself against rudeness. (One is reminded of that famous objection to the “Women Against Rape” campaign: “Are there any women for rape?”) Secondly, it seems that an enormous amount of good stuff has been written on this subject already, and the plate has been licked pretty clean. Thirdly, and even more discouragingly, as long ago as 1971, the great sociologist Erving Goffman wrote that “concern about public life has heated up far beyond our capacity to throw light on it”. So, to sum up: it’s not worth saying; it’s already been said; and it’s impossible to say anything adequate in any case. This is the trouble with doing research.

      However, just as my book on punctuation was fundamentally about finding oneself mysteriously at snapping point about something that seemed a tad trivial compared with war, famine, and the imminent overthrow of Western civilisation, so is Talk to the Hand. I just want to describe and analyse an automatic eruption of outrage and frustration that can at best cloud an otherwise lovely day, and at worst make you resolve to chuck yourself off the nearest bridge. You are lying in a dentist’s chair, for example, waiting quietly for an anaesthetic to “take”, and the dental nurse says, next to your left ear, “Anyway, I booked that flight and it had gone up forty quid.” At which the dentist says, in your right ear, “No! What, in two hours?” And you say, rather hotly, “Look, I’m not unconscious, you know”, and then they don’t say anything, but you know they are rolling their eyes at each other, and agreeing that you are certifiable or menopausal, or possibly both.

      Whether it’s merely a question of advancing years bringing greater intolerance I don’t think I shall bother to establish. I will just say that, for my own part, I need hardly defend myself against any knee-jerk “grumpy old