Knock Off The Social Punching

If not for the pain, Miss Manners might not have noticed. However, once it was forcibly called to her attention, she began observing that there is an awful lot of punching going on in what used to be known as polite society.

Oh, not that kind of punching. Well, yes, that is also going on, unfortunately, sometimes as a way of settling etiquette disputes. But at the moment, she is referring to friendly violence. Perfectly good-natured people in the very throes of joviality keep punching one another to demonstrate the spirit of good fellowship.

Punches have become a common gesture to punctuate greetings, to emphasize conversational points, to indicate teasing, to signal the point of a joke and to say farewell.

The puncher gives a sort of sideways smile and then lands a fist on his victim’s upper arm.

“Hey, howya doing?” Punch. “I hear you’ve been up to no good.” Punch. “So then the first guy said. …” Punch. “See what I mean?” Punch. “Good seeing you.” Punch.

Presumably social punching didn’t start all of a sudden. Miss Manners attributes her previous lack of attention to this phenomena to her desire to overlook technical transgressions on the part of people who clearly mean to be friendly.

But then one day last winter she impulsively decided to go ice skating without taking the trouble to put on skates or go to a rink. Elbow skating is not a sport she recommends. But it does inspire some etiquette curiosities.

For example, when she had to explain using her left hand to shake hands, all sympathizers immediately inquired, “Where did you fall?”

“Down.”

Relevant as her answer seemed to Miss Manners, it was apparently not the correct one. When she named the avenue, however, they would reply, “Oh, that’s all right.” Only then did Miss Manners discover that she had chosen an acceptable address for that sort of thing.

Trivial as her injury was, people went out of their way to be kind. The very next evening a gallant gentleman who was her dinner partner cut up her meat for her. At another dinner party, she discovered a gentleman who had his left arm in a sling identical to the one she had on her right arm. (Navy with white piping is this year’s look in slings.) Not holding it against him that he had a much more glamorous tale to tell, she arranged to sit at his left, and they managed both plates nicely by his working the knife and her working the fork.

Even Miss Manners was inspired to new heights of politeness, an ascent she would not have thought possible. When a friend bumped into her, right at the arm in question and then poured out horrified apologies, Miss Manners found herself protesting, “Oh, don’t give it another thought. It was already broken anyway.”

So everything would have been fine except for the punching. People who had just gotten through expressing their concern emphasized their emotions by punching Miss Manners in the arm. Old friends punched her in the arm. People to whom Miss Manners made a funny story of reporting the problem of arm-punching laughed and then continued to punch her in the arm.

No one seemed deterred by the sling. Miss Manners couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if she had required crutches instead. A jolly belt in the knees?

Nevertheless, were she the only such victim, one might suspect the quality of all that kindly expressed sympathy.

But a good look around dissuaded her of the idea that it might be more of a personal problem than an etiquette problem. Social punching is everywhere, and Miss Manners is not the only one who wishes people would cut it out.

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