In the next few minutes we’re going to be talking about modern manners. It’s an argument that, on the face of it, has been going on between the generations, for hundreds of generations. Older people can often be heard saying the youth of today lack the basics in good behaviour and with newspapers and the media focusing on the anti-social activities of a minority of young people, it’s easy for them to be branded with a negative stereotype. So are British manners really getting worse? Our reporter Mark went to find out.
在接下來的幾分鐘里，我們將談到有關現(xiàn)代禮儀方面的問題。從表面上看，不同輩份之間在對于這方面的爭論大概已持續(xù)幾百個年代。我們經(jīng)常聽到老一輩的人說現(xiàn)在大部分的年輕人缺乏基本規(guī)范的文明禮貌素養(yǎng)，同時報紙新聞也報道了年輕團體的反社會活動，所以年輕人很容易被貼上既定偏見的標簽。難道英國在文明禮貌方面的表現(xiàn)越來越差了嗎？我們的記者馬克決定一探究竟。

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Well, I’ve come to a typical UK high street on a weekday to talk to the young mums and dads, business people, elderly people and students that are out doing their shopping. So we should get an interesting mix of views. Let’s go see what people think.
在某個工作日，我來到了英國一條繁華的商業(yè)街，與那些正在購物的年輕父母、商業(yè)人士、老人和學生談談有關這方面的問題，我們應該會得到一些有意思的觀點，讓我們一起來看看人們是怎么想的吧。

-Excuse me, sir, would you say that manners are getting better or worse in the UK?
“先生，打擾一下，你認為英國在文明禮貌方面的表現(xiàn)是變得越來越好還是越來越糟糕？”

"I actually think they’re getting worse. I think that the standards are declining generally. "
“事實上我覺得是越來越糟糕了，有關禮貌方面的標準大體上降低了。”

"I think they are getting worse but not terribly so."
“我覺得是變差了但也不至于那么糟糕?！?/p>

"Generally in buses and trains I think that people’s manners have improved in many ways."
“從總體上說，在公車和列車上，人們在很多方面的表現(xiàn)已經(jīng)有所進步了?！?/p>

"There are cultural differences, so you might meet someone from a different culture and your set of manners will quite be different to theirs."
“許多文化之間是存在差異的，所以你可能遇到來自不同文化背景的人，而且你在禮儀方面的方式也與他們的不盡相同?！?/p>

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Well, is it all a question of individual taste or is there some common ground? With me here is Simon Fanshawe, author of a book called ‘The Done Thing’, all about modern British manners.
這種問題是因人而異還是普遍存在呢？在我身邊的是西蒙?凡維斯，他是著作《約定俗成》的作者，他在這本書中主要講述了現(xiàn)代英國的禮儀風尚。

-Simon, what are the basic dos and don’ts?
西蒙，在你看來，哪些行為舉止是能體現(xiàn)風度的，哪些是不被接受的？

-I think one of the things that’s confusing for people is when they come here is there appear to be hundreds and hundreds of rules, hundreds of things you should and shouldn’t do. And the truth of it is that most of them are about class. And lots of them are trip-wires actually for people who don’t know them.
So what I tried to do in my book was take it back to some sort of first principle and say look – there are anthropological reasons why we have certain kinds of manners. So I’ll give you a very good example, in Britain there are sort of two ways of holding a knife, very broadly. And broadly speaking the middle-classes hold it with the index finger on the top, gripped in the hand. And working-class people hold it like a pen. Entirely a class distinction and people mercilessly exploit it if they want to. The truth of it is, the one way not to hold a knife at the table, is clasped in your fist, raised as if to kill your guest. And what does that tell us about eating? Well, what it tells us about eating is two things: it's never confuse your guests with either the food or the enemy. Don’t eat them and don’t kill them!That’s about how you should hold your knife, because actually manners are really about the reduction of violence. There’s a lot in there about reducing violence. So that’s just an illustration of what one tries to do so actually when you look at real table manners they’re about people feeling comfortable with each other, sharing food around a table. Very important human thing.
所以我盡量在我的書中還原禮儀本來的概念和從人類學方面說明為什么我們會有既定的禮儀要求。我給你們舉一個很貼切的例子吧。廣泛地說，在英國有兩種握餐刀的方式。一般來說，中產(chǎn)階級緊握餐刀并把食指放在上面，而工人階級握餐刀像握一支筆那樣。這種不同的方式完全是由于階級差異，人們可以毫不留情地利用它。事實上，有一個方法可以避免在餐桌上使用餐刀，就是把它緊握在你的拳頭中，然后舉起來，好像你要殺了你的客人那樣。從中我們可以得知哪些飲食風度呢？這兩件事可以說明：你的客人不會對食物或者你自認為充滿敵對的行為感到困惑，你既不是要吃這些食物，也不是要殺死他們！這都與你握餐刀的方式有關，因為事實上風度與減少暴力是有關系的，而且是很大程度上有關系。所以這很好地闡釋了人們在餐座上其樂融融地分享食物時充滿了人性化的原因。

-And are things actually getting worse?
事情是否越來越糟糕呢？

-Very broadly speaking, we all rub along together pretty well, actually, we don’t do so badly. The trouble with bad manners is that when you experience it, it completely occupies your field of vision. So you feel completely knocked back and rather hurt by somebody.
廣義上講，我們相處得很好，事實上并不是那么順利，在你經(jīng)歷時才會體會到不恰當?shù)娘L度所帶來的困擾，它們完全遮擋了你的視線，所以你會承受打擊和某些人對你的傷害。

-Should foreigners, say, comply with British manners when in Britain or should they just be themselves?
這么說來，外國人是應該遵守英國禮儀要求還是按照他們自己的方式呢？

-Well I think, one, they should be very gentle with us because we’re not terribly good at understanding that there are lots of different customs from round the world, so you know, be gentle. But I think the thing what I would say to anybody going to any other culture, any other country in the world: Number one – be curious, ask yourself. The other thing is don’t think there’s a right and a wrong way to do things in terms of little funny details. Always remember that fundamentals matter more than anything else. ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ is a gift and a grace in any language so treat people in the fundamental purpose of manners which is to make life easier. If I can give you a definition of manners, it is it the reduction of actual or potential violence between strangers. So always seek to defuse conflict, always seek to reach out and offer yourself to other people, always seek to open the door and let them through. Do those kind of things because actually you’ll find people love it and they’ll respond to you.
我希望外國友人能夠寬容地與我們相處，因為我們并不擅于理解來自世界各地不同的文化習俗，所以寬容很重要。對此，我想給那些即將到異國他鄉(xiāng)的人們一些建議：首先，要充滿好奇心和多思考，另一個就是不要非得為一些瑣事劃清對錯界線，記住一些基本規(guī)范的舉止行為比任何其它事都重要。“拜托”和“謝謝”在任何的語言環(huán)境下都簡單好用，也能體現(xiàn)你的個人素養(yǎng)，所以使用簡便的方式對待別人讓生活更輕松。如果要我為“禮貌”定義，就是它能夠緩和陌生人之間的沖突感，所以要尋找方法緩和矛盾，為他人提供幫助，打開心房讓別人有機會去了解你。做到這些善事，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)人們其實很欣慰，并且會給予你同樣友好的回應。

-Simon Fanshawe, it would be very bad manners of me not to say, ‘thank you’ for coming to talk to us.
西蒙?凡斯維，如果我不對你說“感謝您與我們分享這么多”，這是非常不禮貌的。

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Our reporter Mark, minding his p’s and q’s there. And that’s it for this time.
我們的記者馬克，表達了他在風度方面的謹慎。今天我們分享的就這么多。

（來源：英國使館文化教育處，編輯：Helen）