DON GONYEA, HOST:

 

OK. We've all been scolded to keep our elbows off the table or to politely say please and thank you, or for heaven sake not to eat with our fingers at a nice restaurant. Well, maybe you haven't been so reprimanded, but I have. So where did all of these rules come from? A lot of the credit or blame goes to the English, and that's the focus of Henry Hitchings new book. It's called "Sorry! The English and Their Manners."

 

And the book begins not back in medieval times, but with a hot-tempered young tennis player, John McEnroe, at Wimbledon. Here's a reminder.

 

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN MCENROE)

 

JOHN MCENROE: You can't be serious, man. You cannot be serious. That ball was on the line. Chalk flew up. It was clearly in. How could you possibly call that out? Now he's walking over. Everyone knows it's in in this whole stadium, and you called it out?

 

GONYEA: All right. That's probably enough to remind people of the moment. Why start here?

 

HENRY HITCHINGS: To be honest, because a formative experience in my life was watching those Wimbledon matches between John McEnroe and his archrival Bjorn Borg, the doleful-looking Swede who was the sort of embodiment of froideur and self-discipline on the court, whereas McEnroe was very much of the let-it-all-hang-out school. And my parents, who were tennis fans, and who, I suppose you could say, sort of indoctrinated me, led me to think that Bjorn Borg was the person who had it right, and that McEnroe was essentially a harbinger of the death of civilization. And I grew up thinking that. But actually, now, I think we probably think of McEnroe as a taste of a more liberated age. He was a sort of a pioneer, almost, interested in freedom of expression and sort of maintaining his integrity in the face of a really hidebound and sometimes ridiculous institution - namely, the All England Tennis Club.

 

GONYEA: Let's go way back to how this set of rules that McEnroe broke came to be in the first place. You note that the English did not invent manners. Where do we mark the beginning, if we can even begin to mark such a thing?

 

HITCHINGS: Well, one of the problems is we're obviously reliant on written sources, and it's quite clear that manners existed before those sources begin. But the earliest guides we have to manners were written for monastic audiences in the Middle Ages. And what then happened was ideas filtered out from there into the upper sections of society, and aristocratic people - really, aristocratic men - had primers written for them which were mainly concerned with behavior at table. And a lot of the ideas about this came from France, and some also from Germany. But the point was that meals were more socially important in the medieval period than they are now. And in the 14th century, people tended to have very sharp knives to hand as well, which meant that having codes of conduct in place was actually a way of regulating violence. You know, the point is that every meal is essentially an opportunity for violence to break loose and because meals were also diplomatic occasions, it was very important to have those kind of codes in place to ensure that some sort of decorum was maintained.

 

GONYEA: So, what were some of those early codes that were put in place, and how were they received?

 

HITCHINGS: Well, they were received quite positively, because they made quite a lot of sense. I mean, there's an awful lot in early books about things like not wiping droplets from your nose with anything you're later proposing to put into your mouth. There's an awful lot about where you can put your fingers as well - which orifices it's safe to put them into. I mean, the short answer is: not really any. This may sound obvious, but actually it wasn't, not least because we're talking about a society where people didn't really know about germs. And so the reasons not to do those things weren't as cogent, as compelling, as they would be today.

 

GONYEA: In the title of the book, it's the English and their manners. You're describing things that have come from various points around Europe. What made these things English, uniquely English?

 

HITCHINGS: It's really the fact that the English are defined internationally by their obsession with manners. It's not necessarily that the English are particularly polite. Indeed, I would say that while the English are extremely good at saying sorry for things they haven't done, they're not very good at saying sorry for things they have done. But the fixation with manners and the incredibly profuse literature of manners are really what defines the field of English manners.

 

GONYEA: At the end of the book, you have this striking line where you say that - and I'll read it here - (Reading) The doctrine of etiquette took the marrow out of manners, replacing discretion and nuance with black and white legislation. What is the marrow of manners?

 

HITCHINGS: Well, you know, I can flip that around and explain what I think is wrong with etiquette. Etiquette, to me - I'm not saying it is inherently wrong, but it is a veneer. It is a code of cosmetic practices. It's about how long you should wear an armband after your second cousin dies, or what size your greeting card should be, or which fork you should use. And those things are not totally trivial, but ultimately they're not indicators of someone's inherent goodness, or otherwise. And I think the problem is that manners essentially has an image problem. When I talk about the marrow, I'm really talking about fundamental principles to do with sensitivity to others, respect for other people; their space, their belongings. And it just seems to me that the moment etiquette becomes the centerpiece of the agenda, manners and

morality are essentially divorced. And I suppose I'd like to put the morality back at the center of the discussion of manners.

 

GONYEA: Well, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Henry Hitchings is the author of "Sorry: The English and Their Manners." Thank you for joining us.

 

HITCHINGS: Thank you.