Originality turned out to be a bad idea.

Not that Miss Manners would mind occasionally seeing a movie that wasn’t based on a movie about making a movie, or going to an experimental theater that tried any experiment other than “Let’s see if we can shock them by showing them body parts.”

But in everyday life, originality won’t do. We’ve tried it.

In the heady era of believing that we are all born bursting with creativity, the conventional phrases society uttered for marking the conventional events of life were cast aside as insufficient and insincere. It no longer seemed enough to say “Congratulations” to the happy, “I’m terribly sorry” to the sad and “Get well soon” to the sick.

Something more inspired seemed necessary.

But what?

The suggestion - not a noticeably original idea, by the way - was that people should consult their feelings and then improvise remarks based on their emotions. Uninhibited by the unimaginative dictates of etiquette, they would produce fresh heart-to-heart communication - a veritable flow of uniquely personal empathy that would make the world a better place.

Only they didn’t and it wasn’t. Searching their hearts, most people came up with the ideas of talking about themselves instead or critiquing others.

They took friends’ milestones and predicaments as opportunities to recount their own past experiences, thus eclipsing anybody else’s current situation by putting the spotlight on themselves. When they did think about what was happening to their friends, they expressed how envious or how relieved they were that it wasn’t happening to them.

Or they interpreted announcements and silence alike as license to probe for intimate details and to tell everybody what was wrong with them and how they could live their lives better.

Their own failings, they saved for strangers - even strangers on airplanes with books over their heads - whose mere presence they took as invitations to unburden themselves of their most intimate confessions.

They stopped apologizing because they had already forgiven themselves, and they dropped words such as “please,” “excuse me” and “thank you,” which only served to appease others, not to express their own feelings. It occurred to them that other people’s disappointed expectations were their problem.

Miss Manners does not for a minute think that all people are selfish - even that all rude people are. Relieved of etiquette, even the highest sentiments can be offensive.

Those with the strongest moral fervor became, when relieved of the polite pretense of respect for the opinions of others, the most obnoxious. Even those most conscious of not wanting to offend helped lower the tone of society by pretending not to mind vulgarity and insults.

And the most emotionally devastating remarks were made to those who most genuinely wanted to enter into other people’s joys or sorrows. Under the mistaken notion that the right words could fundamentally alter the situation for the better, they tried to make the newly bereaved be cheerful and the newly engaged, cautious.

Or, knowing that such consolation and counsel had cruel results, they admitted they didn’t know what to say - and offended people with their silence.

Etiquette can provide people with the right thing to say - but not because it’s so adorably creative, although heaven knows it sometimes has to be to get through the situations people throw at it nowadays. It is because it expresses its feelings in the time-tested ways that it knows will be appreciated and understood.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate