That was engaging. Thanks for posting the link!

my husband asks a lot of questions, he's a curious guy, and my grandmother thought he was being pretty obnoxiuos! she's british! :) weird how cultures can be so different... well, not weird... but weird that it doesn't occur to me more often that it's quite natural... (did that make sense?)

She seems to have a very, um, vivid imagination when it comes to the origin and history of American manners. FWIW, I'm of English origin, with no history of or connection with African cultures at all, but in my culture it is quite normal for children to address adult "friends of the family" as Aunt and Uncle.

A rather interesting discussion thread on alt.poly recently was comparing Australian and American manners, particularly with respect to such things as tipping and interacting with taxi drivers and so forth. To my eye, such comparisons make it pretty clear that many aspects of American manners are not based on egalitarianism, despite what Ms Martin may have to say about it.

FWIW, I have found some of the most vocal proponents of Ms Martin's writings to have the poorest manners (by my standards) of folk in my extended social circle. I find that interesting.

I'm referring to a few folk who tend to be very vocal about The Wonderfulness Of Miss Manners on alt.poly (and other newsgroups) - much burbling about "what would Miss Manners do?" and "Miss Manners wouldn't approve of that" and so forth, for example. You don't tend to do that so much, as far as I recall. This same several folk also tend to be the first to jump on folk with whom they disagree, with "cleverly" snarky bitchiness or dismissively snide remarks. I doubt that "Miss Manners" would approve of that sort of thing either, but somehow they never seem to consider that terribly important. *sigh*

I've never had any problems with your manners, FWIW. I'd much rather hear about your concepts of good manners than those of "Miss Manners" and her more vocal enthusiasts. I have more respect for your concept of courtesy since you actually seem to adhere to it consistently yourself. :-)