In the Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal, English writer John Derbyshire reviews a book, “Talk to the Hand,” by fellow Brit Lynne Truss, who laments the deline of civility and good manners in both U.S. and British culture. Truss, he observes, seems to think that reversing the collapse in good manners is a lost cause in England.
Writes Derbyshire: “I think she is right, and my own advice to English folk like herself, who are tired of it all, is to move to the U.S. — if possible to the southeastern states of the old Confederacy, whose inhabitants practice far and away the best manners in the English-speaking world.”
If good manners and civility make Virginia and the South distinctive, let us by all means celebrate our uniqueness.
