I’ve often wondered what makes something rude and what makes something proper. It’s a pretty fine line, actually, as far as I can tell. I’m also pretty sure that the line between worlds is slightly askew between different cultures, which makes things far more complicated than it should be. Actually, it would be pretty complicated anyway – who makes these rules anyway? Is there a board that gets together quarterly to define “rude” behavior? They are pretty quiet about it, because I’ve never seen them listed anywhere. It’s not based on common sense; we wouldn’t have four forks whenever we sat down to a “proper” dinner, if common sense was involved. If there’s a committee deciding these things, it’s got to be a local thing and not an ISO (International Standards Organization) type thing, because of the regional differences.
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