I’m reminded of this old filk song, itself a musicalisation of a much older poem by Kipling:
I think, in discussing English culture, I’ll compare to aspects of other cultures already discussed.
whether people uses a spoon to eat spaghetti.
Optional. I don’t. It might be considered bourgeois in some circles.
How people blow their noses
Tissue or handkerchief.
how they put their trousers on
I’m confused, how many ways are there to do this?
if they piss standing or sitting
I assume you refer to men, in which case the answer is usually standing.
if they know what’s a “bidet”
I consider bidets a little fancy – a very middle-class feature. I don’t have one.
blatant and sometimes rude honesty
This, I would say, is associated more with the North of England than the South, the North being an area with a much more working-class cultural history. In the South, circumlocutory politeness seems to be more common.
Never wear your shoes inside a house.
There are some people who don’t like shoes in the house. In that case, though, it’s really to do with preserving expensive carpets.
In fact, it’s considered a bit weird if you don’t make any sound.
Like in Italy, eating noisily is a taboo – the classic example is slurping a cup of tea.
Always stand in line for anything. That includes when waiting for the bus / train.
In England, you just stand anywhere on the platform and enter through the closest door.
You can be (what I would consider) rude to the waiter
I was once actually scolded by a waiter for failing to say please; to the surprise of no English person, it was by a middle-aged woman in the North.
In general don’t break any rules, however silly they may be.
Thankfully not a part of our culture. The idea of “jaywalking”, in particular, doesn’t really even exist – if there are no close cars approaching, you exercise common sense and cross the road.
a) Wearing sandals and (white) socks in Greece immediately brands you as a tourist.
Socks and sandals are a very well-known joke here as well.
In Greek outdoors taverns there are always stray cats and dogs.
Stray cats around restaurants is something I associate heavily with Southern Europe.
i) You do not have to tip the waiters.
The usually English rate is something like 15%, I think. We’re not at the level of the USA, in which heavy tipping is almost mandatory, but to not tip makes a definite statement that you found the service bad.
On public transport and ships, you will see locals put their feet on another nearby seat, but rarely on a table.
Both of those would be considered rude here, since you’re dirtying the seat with your shoes.
Locals not in big cities almost always say good-day and good-by when entering/leaving shops.
I’d feel odd not bookending my interaction with a cashier with at least “hi” and “thanks”.
Past a certain age, Greek males will NEVER wear shorts
A similar rule applies in England, although less rigorously – allowances are made for sports, beach situations &c. but I would cringe a little to see a grown man wearing shorts completely casually.
don’t be alarmed if someone walks in with a pistol on their hip and carrying a rifle
I don’t think it’s even legal here to carry a firearm in a public place… guns in England are meant to be only for sporting, law enforcement, and military use. The notion of a pistol holster rings very, very American to me.
In Italy [showing people one’s tongue is] a mocking gesture, typical for children.
The same here.
Many years ago I went to Norway and was astonished by people standing perfectly in line just to get into a pub!
If the pub is crowded then, yeah, you’ll have to queue to get in. This really applies to larger pubs with bouncers and live music, and ofc to nightclubs.
They try to imitate (not learn) dialect.
The UK has no real cultural acknowledgement of dialect, except in the case of Scots, so as not to call it a language. What we have is “accent”, and to imitate another accent is the realm of mockery. With perhaps the exception of regional-accented people code-switching with “Middle-Class Southern British English”, one of the prestige accents.
[I’d argue that Received Pronunciation (1950s David Attenborough), Upper-Class RP (the Queen), and MSBE (Tom Scott) are three separate prestige accents, although related.]
We greet strangers on the street if outside of cities
I’ve never lived rurally so I couldn’t say.
Nobody in Europe has a railway network more precise than ours.
> England
> trains
Swiss people take great pride in their egalitarian society
English society doesn’t really have a thick enough veil for anyone to bother making that pretence.
Thrift shops (“Brockenstube”, “Brocki”) are a big thing.
Here they’re always run for one charity or another. The British Heart Foundation owns many of them.
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I remembered this video, about etiquette in the American South.
Their listed manners are:
“common courtesy”
please / thank you
ma’am / sir
In England, sir is used by students to teachers, in traditional custom, and by employees to customers.
hospitality (food & drinks)
RSVP / thank you notes
Only written by children to relatives on receiving a Christmas or birthday present, I’d say.
saying “you’re welcome”
smiling & waving as an acknowledgement to gracious drivers
I was taught this as good manners, whether or not you’re also driving.
(male) walking on the road side of the sidewalk (pavement)
A traditional courtesy still fairly widely upheld. I saw an interesting inversion of it last year when I passed a couple on a narrow pavement – the woman walked out into the road so that her partner could bravely shield her from my presumably more dangerous coronavirus-y threat.
@teapoweredrobot What do you think, have I been misrepresentative?
I never knew Tom was putting on an accent for his productions 
TMYK
He’s not. Middle-class Southern British English is a natural accent, which is not to say that everyone who speaks in it acquired it naturally.
For a while, I’ve also had the feeling that there is a distinct London variety of MSBE as well, which I would place Tom Scott in as well as, say, Geoff Marshall. But I might be fooling myself.
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I have also heard other people express the sentiment that Londoners have a distinct accent, but my non-English ears are nowhere near adept enough to pick it up. I can probably only hear a handful of distinct English dialects when I’m lead to believe there are several dozens of them.
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I’d identify three key accents in London.
-
“London MSBE”. This is a middle-class white accent.
-
Cockney / Estuary English. This is a working-class white accent, estuary English being a development of cockney.
-
Multicultural London English. This is a multi-ethnic lower-class accent with a lot of foreign, non-European phonology.
There are also many distinct foreign accents with very extensive speakership in London.
It’s worth remembering that less than half of the population of London identifies as “White British”, so there are naturally a great many different accents in use.
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I don’t think it’s legal to carry a firearm in a private place either. I’m no expert but since the mid 90s I’m pretty sure you can only store firearms in an approved locked cabinet, take them for whatever use you are allowed and put them back when you’re done. I just don’t think carrying guns is a thing.
Even the police do not routinely carry guns. There are more armed officers now but I was shocked the first time I saw armed police at the airport. Very different to Switzerland for example where it seems difficult to be at a train station without seeing someone with a fearsome looking weapon, presumably on their way to or from some kind of military service.
Not sure if you want me to comment on every other element too. But I do think that throwing yourself into the road to keep 2m from those going the other way had become a new etiquette.
I’m not sure I’d read anything into your couple example though.
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There is a trick here about waiting in line, in services where they give out numbers (e.g. banks, post offices etc). I call it “the flower pot trick” but I do not know if it really has a name. It goes like this:
- You take a number and wait a few minutes so that people will get used to you being there waiting.
- You know that a lot of people take two numbers OR have taken a number and left OR were bored by waiting and went to do something else
- You head to the flower pot at the edge of the waiting area, that way you can survey everyone that is waiting. As it is usual, if your number is next, then you fidget and check all your paperwork again. A lot of people stand up and wait much closer to the cashier if it is their turn next. If noone is doing that, then the next number is probably “empty”.
- Once the next number is announced, you take three steps towards the cashier. If noone moves, then this is a confirmation that you can take the number. If someone moves, then you can pretend you were going elsewere and return to the flower pot
“Funny story” when I was forced to use that tactic when I was living in a larger city. I was already late and I had to wait in the post office, just for a clerk to give me a package. Waiting 1 hour for something that takes less than a minute? Ok, “flower pot trick” time.
So, I do it and lo and behold I get my package.
While preparing to go outside I see this woman waiting near the flower pot as well. I was feeling a bit guilty, so I say to her: “Would you like my number” (not my phone number, the number about waiting in line 
). I flip the paper and it reads 164.
She smiles and flips hers and it reads 115.
Ooooooops. 
I think that is starting to happen in most big cities. Especially now with all the mobile tech, people are getting skittish about physical interaction.
I remember being in Athens for some business and I had to take the subway from one way to the other. That takes a lot of time and it was midday and very hot. But since I got in from the first subway station, I got a seat and so did another fellow in front of me.
Fast forward 4 stations later, that dude in front of me falls asleep. I still needed a long way to go, but I a couple of stations more and I noticed a lot of people leaving the wagon to get to other stations and lines. So, maybe that dude would miss his station or exchange spot. I wouldn’t like to try heading for home after a looooong way of work, only to find myself 30 kilometers away from everything at the terminal station.
So, I nudge him on the knee (I thought it was a safe spot for him to not wake up with a start or be scared) and told him that he had fallen asleep and his station might be coming up.
Everyone around us was so shocked … I found it like a very normal thing to do.
People living in cities have some weird reactions.
Similarly, to continue a bit from my previous post, while eating in taverns, small talk with people with other tables, you’ve never met is actually pretty acceptable, especially if it is about something even remotely funny.
I was on another city, again for work, and it was like 14:00 so I went to a gyros-souvlaki grill to sit down, drink a beer and have two gyros. When I got in, the place was semi-empty and that was the time it was starting to fill in.
On the opposite table - around 4 meters away because the corridor where the waiters where passing through was between us - sat a fellow around 50 years old. He orders a HUGE salad and a beer.
Now he is sitting accross me, so we are lowkey actually watching each other eat.
So far, so good. I just assumed that he was eating something light or was vegeterian, you know. By why go to a grill tavern for a salad, eh?
After I had just finished eating and was sitting enjoying my beer, the waiter comes and brings him an ENORMOUS beef steak, with sides, potatoes, tzatziki, etc.
The dude looks at the plate.
Looks at me sitting back with my beer.
Smiles and says to me: – “I wasn’t expecting it to be THAT large, but hey, we can’t complain for large portions now, can we?”
I am not missing a beat: – “What is it anyway? Godzilla steak from the reserves?” (local joke about the unspecified meat the Greek army is serving) (1)
– “Beef supposedly. Right lad?” he winks at the waiter.
– “You reckon you can handle that or should you call a friend?”
– “Nope! plenty of people here that can lend a mouth if need be, eh?”
and some people from nearby tables found that interaction funny, I tipped my glass and we all had a laugh.
A few minutes later I had to go. The fellow was still tackling the steak.
– “So, how is the climb going?” I tell him, smiling.
– “I am climbing deftly like a goat!” he exclaims
– “Watch for any cliffs on that mountainside, then. Happy climbing!” we both laughed and I left.
I dawned to me much later that had we both been in some other place, that might have been deemed quite inappropriate.
I have taken to give names to them, at my favorite summer tavern spots. 
I name them after particular politicians that do nothing and just take their salaries and lie around doing nothing … quite fitting methinks 
Stray cats are a very good indicator by the way on where to rent an appartment in a larger city you are not familiar with. If the street you are on has stray cats, this means it is safe/quiet there.
I never understood this exhorbitant tipping idea to be honest.
Well, I am not planning to keep that local custom when I grow older.
People already look at me funny with the way I am always casually dressed and still hopping over the school fence in the afternoon and play basketball at my age, but who cares? As long as I do not bother anyone else, I think that I should wear what is comfortable according to the time and temperature outside.
(1)
The comic was written around 1988
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Does it depend on how much you think the staff earn? I always assume that wages must be higher/ or these jobs regulated more in non-tipping places. Certainly in the UK it’d be surprising to me if waiting staff are making more than minimum wage on a zero hours contract (i.e. v limited rights) so I think tipping is almost a moral obligation. The only problem is where the restaurant uses tips to bring wages up to the minimum wage or some other shenanigans.
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What is that with “when in Rome, shoot candles”?
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Quite so. With the tips being as I described them earlier, a good waiter or a barman, can make quite a decent daily wage here.
If you were to tip 15% then even a 20euro order would mean a 3 euro tip.
This means that in a medium sized tavern, with, let’s say 15 tables and an average of 40 euro orders per table, a waiter can make 90 euros tax free in 2 hours + wages.
In a country with a monthly minimum wage of around 550 euros after taxes?
15% does seem like a bit much, with that data, right?
Even with the 1 euro tip, if all tables fill just once during the night, it is a 15 euro tax free extra for the two hours.
To have a comparison, with 25-30 euros you hire people to do heavy work on the fields for 8 hours.
In Greece everything is regulated and, at the same time, nothing is regulated
By law, the waiters and cooks and tavern staff MUST receive normal wages and be insured.
In reality a lot of people opt out of that, take the insurance money “cash” and declare that they are actually working part-time.
Other owners just flat out declare workers part-time and underpay them, but those scalpers do not survive much in the industry. People willing to steal a few euros off their waiters never make good food and the competition here is stiff.
Plus, if you are caught, the fine is quite steep. 10.000 (yes, ten thousand) euros per employee which you have uninsured.
That is what I mostly do not understand. Why is that thing allowed in the first place.
I am not talking about lowlife scalpers that steal money from their employees. I am talking about situations like the States where a whole country treats a category of workers that way LEGALLY O_o
If it is a job, then people ought to be paid for it. Period.
If a client wants to tip, that’s cool. But you cannot have your wages be based on whether clients will be magnanimous or not.
So, in places where that’s legal, I say let’s make other jobs like that too. Like lawyers and doctors (which, incidentally are the professions of the majority of lawmakers) and, especially, public servants. How would they like it if we could them pay “whatever we like” and only AFTER they had won the case or healed our issues?
And if they lost or we weren’t healed? We could go “meh, I wasn’t happy with your service kk thanx byeee”
Fair is fair, eh? 
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Tips at us are similarly to Greece, I guess. You just round up and tell the waiter “it’s fine, thanks”. Or you round up to next full Franc and add two more, like from 34.30 and you tell the waiter “37”.
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Perhaps it wasn’t as much as 15%. I probably highballed that.
After all, I’ve barely been to a restaurant for a year so my memory’s fading…
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Tips are sometimes collected and then shared between kitchen and waiters. For fairness.
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Kitchen staff is one thing since they don’t get customer face time… But sharing tips among waiters isn’t fair, the whole point of the system is that better waiters get rewarded. If they’re all split evenly that all goes away.
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Well the point is to balance the income between selling force and production, and tips sometimes are a big part of the income in a point you would be surprised. Restaurants managers know that to keep cooks they better pay them well but that’s not always enough. With tips, the salary of a waiter can go to 3 or 4 times. It’s no easy task to redistribute either, waiters will be obviously reluctant and change place of work… Besides it’s all kind of undercover, making it difficult to negotiate.
But as I said it works sometimes as having a well satisfied whole team with much less tension may finally prove to be very efficient in every aspect, quality of food and welcoming of the client included.
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While on this subject another cultural difference is what you leave in your plate. In China it’s a very usual thing to never finish any plate of food, my own estimation being to throw away at least 25% of the food you order.
The exception being workers, employees eating their daily meals…
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How times change. We kids of Depression parents, all over America, grew up with the admonition to clean our plates because there were starving children in India or China. This even spawned humorous rebuttal cartoons, like one where the kid says, “Then send my leftovers to China,” or something like that. Alternatively, parents used the “eat it or starve” and the “no desert” strategies.
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I think that approach is still alive in many places, although with India and China replaced by Africa.
In that regard, I think contemporary coverage of the 1983-85 Ethiopian famine had a big impact on some people of a certain age, although that generation has largely aged out of the parental bracket now.
Whereas the major Chinese famine took place from 1959 to 1961 and would’ve been more impactful on their parents. Or at least so I assume; I have no idea how or if it was reported on at the time.
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