TALK TO THE HAND: THE UTTER BLOODY RUDENESS OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Lynne Truss, Profile Books, from US$9.95 for hardcover on www.amazon.com
When encountering blatantly rude people is an all-too-common occurrence these days, this is a book that will certainly beget a good, loud laugh.
Talk to the Hand follows upon the author’s international bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which tackles the topic of the comma – or rather the use (and misuse) of punctuation – and attempts to highlight what can go wrong. (The said comma, when misplaced, can lead to the sentence being read in different ways, favourably or unfavourably.)
Rudeness is what Talk is all about; an effort to address how impolite and more dangerous the world is becoming. Truss does well to mourn about what is unacceptable behaviour in modern-day life, or “the apparent collapse of civility in all areas of our dealings with strangers”. She confronts the subject of rudeness in six chapters, which she deems are the “six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door”. Truss clearly defines and analyses her concerns with the clever use of everyday-life situations. Kudos to a formal and civil conversation taking place in a French grocery that’s peppered with the “good mornings”, “thank yous” and “good byes”, as opposed to a non-English speaker getting the snub in an English grocery.
Truss’ first good reason, “Was that so hard to say?”, is a reminder to use courtesy words – somewhat forgotten these days – like “thank you”, “please”, “excuse me” and “sorry”. She cites the example of holding a door open for someone and having them walk through it usually without a word of gratitude (think the hotel entrance, in the lift and alighting from the cab). Her second reason, “Why am I the one doing this?”, dwells on “the unacceptable transfer of effort”. A colleague blabbering away on the phone, while you’re trying to concentrate on your work, when they ought to be the ones concentrating on keeping their voices down – sounds familiar, eh?
In the remaining four chapters, Truss examines (the encroachment of) personal space, the trend of telling someone to f*** off in uncomfortable situations, political correctness and the prevailing psychology of non-accountability based on the assumption that “someone else will clean it up”, in which she writes quoting George Orwell, the “society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice”.
Talk is truly the language of modernity, the kind of book you’d pass on to someone who is rude – just for the fun of it.
Julian Tan
