It's amazing. Women can wear trousers, miniskirts or bikinis. Men can go for plastic surgery to improve their looks. Both sexes can go for body pearcing and tattoos. And no-one thinks that any of this affects the person's character. But wear a hat indoors, and suddenly you're a rude and disrespectful oaf.

Get a grip, folks. Why should this matter?

You only think that it's bad manners bcos you've been told it's bad manners. No-one, in this entire thread, has raised the possibility that they simply don't know. I certainly never knew about it until I read some Victorian-era novels, and my reaction was "how petty". In the UK in particular, you'll hardly ever see someone wearing a hat - the odd cloth cap amongst older men, maybe, but apart from that, hats are a mere affectation to fit a fashion (this includes baseball caps), so "manners" such as tipping one's hat to a lady are similarly affected, not a natural response.

Kendall's last post says it all - codified manners is merely a way of creating a group of ppl whom you can dislike. In NO way do codified manners equate to politeness, moral behaviour, or being pleasant to others. I'd say Jeepman's first line is exactly wrong - I have always thought that these were pretty well accepted as being dead as a dodo. Do you also look down on women who don't stick their little finger out when drinking their cup of tea? Or ppl whose glass touches their nose when they're drinking? Or who scoop their soupspoon towards them instead of away from them? I sincerely hope that everyone can answer "no" to these...

Or is it just the case that the Old World (England) is moving with the times, and the New World (the US) is stuck in the past? ;-)

Graham.