Social customs / manners that could become mainstream?

Another possibility is interrupting, which has become tolerated de facto in certain regions such as metropolitan NYC where talking fast and getting business done are considered the paramount virtues. A similar business culture might result in interruptions becoming more admissible elsewhere.

I would say Interrupting being socially acceptable is basically confined to bits of the East Coast of America. Certainly anywhere in the bits of Europe and Asia I know it is regarded as something between rude (Italy), very rude (England) and mortal insult (Japan) and I can't see that changing any time soon.

I don't think you're talking about manners here. For instance, I just can't imagine polite mechant selling spices in a Ottoman bazaar during the 1600's. Now, if closing business deals in NY today equals selling spices in a 1600's Ottoman bazaar, that's a different issue.
 
I don't think you're talking about manners here. For instance, I just can't imagine polite mechant selling spices in a Ottoman bazaar during the 1600's. Now, if closing business deals in NY today equals selling spices in a 1600's Ottoman bazaar, that's a different issue.

It may have started with business culture in NY but it has bleed through to social interactions. I work in London for a major multi-national firm where I have American co-workers and have travelled to the US for work and interrupting in post work social occasions i.e. out for dinner, the pub, bars is far more common among coastal Americans than any other group. I have literally lost count of the number of times I've heard someone say "x is really rude, he never lets you finish your sentence/always interrupts/doesn't know when to shut up" and x is almost always an American. That's not to say Americans are uniquely bad and that other nations don't also have frequently complained about habits, the general Asian unwillingness to come to the point is equally annoying and I'm sure when the Americans and Europeans get together they have a lot of complaints about the Brits.
 
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Dunno how commonplace it is, but my family has a dinner custom where, after you've eaten your meal, you pour a bit of water on your dirty plate as a way to give thanks to God. I dunno if this is a Muslim thing or a Malay thing, but I think it would be interesting to see the practice spread all over Southeast Asia or the Musllim world. Certainly makes mealtimes more interesting!
 
Dunno how commonplace it is, but my family has a dinner custom where, after you've eaten your meal, you pour a bit of water on your dirty plate as a way to give thanks to God. I dunno if this is a Muslim thing or a Malay thing, but I think it would be interesting to see the practice spread all over Southeast Asia or the Musllim world. Certainly makes mealtimes more interesting!

In France it's common to clean our plates with a slice of bread (it's seem as impolite if you do it in a restaurant, but it's common in family meals).

It may have started with business culture in NY but it has bleed through to social interactions. I work in London for a major multi-national firm where I have American co-workers and have travelled to the US for work and interrupting in post work social occasions i.e. out for dinner, the pub, bars is far more common among coastal Americans than any other group. I have literally lost count of the number of times I've heard someone say "x is really rude, he never lets you finish your sentence/always interrupts/doesn't know when to shut up" and x is almost always an American. That's not to say Americans are uniquely bad and that other nations don't also have frequently complained about habits, the general Asian unwillingness to come to the point is equally annoying and I'm sure when the Americans and Europeans get together they have a lot of complaints about the Brits.

I always recommend Tocqueville's Democracy in America to Europeans, here's an insteresting quote from this 1835 book:

Among aristocratic nations, all who live within reach of the first class in society commonly strain to be like it, which gives rise to ridiculous and insipid imitations. As a democratic people do not possess any models of high breeding, at least they escape the daily necessity of seeing wretched copies of them. In democracies manners are never so refined as among aristocratic nations, but on the other hand they are never so coarse. Neither the coarse oaths of the populace nor the elegant and choice expressions of the nobility are to be heard there; the manners of such a people are often vulgar, but they are neither brutal nor mean.

I have already observed that in democracies no such thing as a regular code of good breeding can be laid down; this has some inconveniences and some advantages.
 
Among aristocratic nations, all who live within reach of the first class in society commonly strain to be like it, which gives rise to ridiculous and insipid imitations. As a democratic people do not possess any models of high breeding, at least they escape the daily necessity of seeing wretched copies of them. In democracies manners are never so refined as among aristocratic nations, but on the other hand they are never so coarse. Neither the coarse oaths of the populace nor the elegant and choice expressions of the nobility are to be heard there; the manners of such a people are often vulgar, but they are neither brutal nor mean.

I have already observed that in democracies no such thing as a regular code of good breeding can be laid down; this has some inconveniences and some advantages.

I always recommend Tocqueville's Democracy in America to Europeans, here's an insteresting quote from this 1835 book:

I was about to say I completely agree with you but then I thought about France which since 1789/1848 hasn't had an aristocracy but I have always found French people to be fairly polite and formal, probably more so than Brits who still have an aristocracy (even if it's been fairly irrelevant socially since 1945).
 
I was about to say I completely agree with you but then I thought about France which since 1789/1848 hasn't had an aristocracy but I have always found French people to be fairly polite and formal, probably more so than Brits who still have an aristocracy (even if it's been fairly irrelevant socially since 1945).

That's an interesting topic, but I afraid I have no straightforward explanation. IMHO the social norm is more-or-less formed and celebrated during the cultural apex of a given society, ie. America's early days, British Victorian era and French Ancien Régime. However, I have to admit that's a very subjective interpretation of mine.
 
How about this: the word "testimony" comes from the practice in the Roman Empire of a man holding his crotch while swearing an oath to tell the truth. Suppose somehow that survived, even with the rise of Christianity? (I can't begin to imagine what the female equivalent might be...)
 
In South Africa, if you're shaking hands with someone more important than you or passing something to them you're expected to put your other hand on your wrist while doing so. That would be a pretty cool custom to have, IMHO.

How about this: the word "testimony" comes from the practice in the Roman Empire of a man holding his crotch while swearing an oath to tell the truth. Suppose somehow that survived, even with the rise of Christianity? (I can't begin to imagine what the female equivalent might be...)

According to my etymological dictionary, there's no ancient evidence of such a practice, so this is probably just a folk etymology.
 
- Spittons : cigar smoking people regularly spit and need ashtray for their spit.
- Oiling hair
- whistling as replacement for clapping at music/sports performance
- openly ogling sexy woman
- noisily drinking soup

That's all OTL though. The US Capitol Building has spittoons since chewing tobacco used to be fashionable (and not a stereotype of white trash) 100+ years ago.

One huge example is if all the cigarette/tobacco/smoking-related customs never fall out of fashion. At one point, cigarette smoke was supposed to be considered fragrant and if you didn't think so, it was impolite to speak up and complain. The fact that custom declined is considered a major reason for the decline of smoking in general. If all that stays in fashion, then Big Tobacco has billions more dollars to play around with, and more important rates of lung cancer, heart disease, etc. increase big time, with corresponding costs on the healthcare system.
 
This is a topic I'm really interested in, so I'll try to think of something to post at .

I think @pattersonautobody is onto something, here. It may well be a bit of a 'careful what you wish for' kind of deal, but it's completely possible for there to be a 'conservative backlash' in regards to social norms and conventions. More than just possible, I'm rather convinced it's coming.

Perhaps it may. But it would be precisely that: a conservative backlash. As in backlash from traditional conservatives.

Without getting into opinions on the matter (I have some, but they're fairly heterodox and, moreover, for the sake this discussion neither here nor there)... I simply note that we currently live in an era of far-reaching egalitarianism and progressivism. I don't just mean the last few decades. I mean that everything from the late 18th century to the mid-to-late 21st century may well be called "the democratic era" or "the egalitarian era" in future historiography of the Western world.

Hmm.....maybe.

I also think that this current period and its prevailing attitudes will not last. As indicated by the timeframe above, I personally suspect that it will not outlive this current century. It's not at all unrealistic to assume that the pendulum is going to swing back the other way, and in an equally far-reaching way as it has swung to egalitarianism and progressivism in the current period. A hundred years from now, I would not be surprised to find the Western world highly tradition-oriented, with clear social stratification, distinctive relative positions for individuals who occupy different 'rungs of the ladder', strict forms and conventions when it comes to ettiquette, and a resurgence of formal protocol in many social settings.

Hmm.....I'm sorry to say this, but I must be honest and point out that-re: the bold-you are, in fact, objectively wrong; such a scenario is, in fact, massively unrealistic even IOTL; it is not only extremely unlikely but incredibly implausible on top of that. I mean, forget about just manners-in such a hypothetical scenario of at least nearly unprecedented mass regression, things such as acceptance of LGBT folk or interracial marriage would be gone as well. Hell, no more Declaration of the Rights of Man, either. And chattel slavery would be back. Amongst many, many other things. So, so much would have to happen, and so many things would have to go so utterly and dreadfully wrong to even make your scenario possible that even the Drakaverse might be more plausible(thankfully. The world has enough problems as it is).

Dunno how commonplace it is, but my family has a dinner custom where, after you've eaten your meal, you pour a bit of water on your dirty plate as a way to give thanks to God. I dunno if this is a Muslim thing or a Malay thing, but I think it would be interesting to see the practice spread all over Southeast Asia or the Musllim world. Certainly makes mealtimes more interesting!

Now this is interesting.

For East Asia, honorifics and politeness gradients falling by the wayside is a definite possibility.

Especially from this century onward.
 
The Norse would, in the early days swear oaths to Gods who didn't regard oaths as sacred (usually Odin) when they had no intention of keeping their oath to ignorant Christians while making oaths to other God's (usually Thor) when they meant to keep their word.
 
If a cellphones produced different tones when a different emoji is pressed and human vocalization of that tone would cause a cellphone to select the emoji with speach to text messaging those sounds would become part of human language.
It would start with children doing it and really annoying their parents and teachers. Eventually daily speach would be filled with hums,squeeks, whistles and funny sounds associated with different emojis.

-------------------------------------------------------

Xhosa is next!
 
If a cellphones produced different tones when a different emoji is pressed and human vocalization of that tone would cause a cellphone to select the emoji with speach to text messaging those sounds would become part of human language.
It would start with children doing it and really annoying their parents and teachers. Eventually daily speach would be filled with hums,squeeks, whistles and funny sounds associated with different emojis.
And the Emoji Movie would be even worse.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Hmm.....I'm sorry to say this, but I must be honest and point out that-re: the bold-you are, in fact, objectively wrong; such a scenario is, in fact, massively unrealistic even IOTL; it is not only extremely unlikely but incredibly implausible on top of that. I mean, forget about just manners-in such a hypothetical scenario of at least nearly unprecedented mass regression, things such as acceptance of LGBT folk or interracial marriage would be gone as well. Hell, no more Declaration of the Rights of Man, either. And chattel slavery would be back. Amongst many, many other things. So, so much would have to happen, and so many things would have to go so utterly and dreadfully wrong to even make your scenario possible that even the Drakaverse might be more plausible(thankfully. The world has enough problems as it is).

The crux here, I think, is that we probably disagree on the shape of history. I've responded to your comment in some detail, but I've taken it to Chat, so as not to derail this thread with a largely off-topic conversation.
 
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