Someone sees you, spits, and perfunctorily greets you.
Someone perfunctorily greets you, and thereupon spits.
Someone perfunctorily greets you, and as you go on they spit audibly behind your back.
Anyone else have a problem with these scenarios like I do? My further question is this: let’s even say the odds are overwhelming that the spitter is just doing it out of habit, nothing more - might I have stopped and asked something like, “Hey, are you chewing snuff, there?” or even the semi-jocular chide, “Man. That’s just gross.”?
IOW, how do you deal with it? I think those comments above would be a bit more gracious and less aggressive than, “Seriously? Spitting after you just said my name?”, or “So, did you mean that?”. That’s the crux of my issue, here. In my case, I’m not a spitter other than in the bathroom sink or an emergency of something bad in the mouth, but I don’t have anything against habitual spitting per se, other than the opinion that it’s seldom really necessary in public, but hey…live and let live, I guess. The issue I have is that spitting in the above three contexts is entirely a classic and universal cause for insult, the third being particularly distasteful in that, as an insult, the spitter compounds the offence with a display of cowardice. That the spitter may just be behaving like a brainless tool because it’s “masculine” or whatever to be burping and spitting and breaking wind all over the place, and he really means no particular personal insult, doesn’t matter and is beside the point: the insult is built into the timing and is particularly pointed because of it, and if it’s there to the beholder’s eye, that is valid and the offense may not be lightly brushed aside. And I personally hold the adult offender accountable for his lack of social forethought if no insult is intended. It’s possibly an educational opportunity, but I just wonder: at what point is this really enough to overstep my own bounds and give my opinion? Maybe I should just go quietly and uncertainly on in hopes of a less socially loaded interchange, and leave yer man to continue being the bestial thing he is, and leave it to someone else to give him the black eye he’s just asking for.
If there’s no question that he actually means to insult me in such a manner, that’s another thing entirely and I can deal with that.
I’m not going to ask people’s opinions of my viewpoint. I see no good reason to abandon it just because “manners have changed”. Some things really don’t change at all, and this is one of them. I guess all I ask is that you spitters out there either develop a sense of social skill and time things better, or be big enough to apologise after making such a black gaffe. Otherwise, only do it if you mean it.
I have a problem with spitting in general. It’s disgusting…no different, to my mind, than blowing your nose onto the sidewalk. What is it with some guys, that they can’t seem to swallow their own saliva?
I confess to launching the occasional snot rocket myself, but only as an expedient and particularly in winter when the weather makes my nose all prodigiously supplied like that. But I do it when people aren’t around, or at least at a darned good remove. If I absolutely have to do so in the presence of another, 1) that other will preferably be a guy, and 2) I will beg pardon prior to the act. We’ll probably have a laugh over it, but the prior conditions don’t change.
My opinion? Recreational (for lack of a better word) spitting is a display that’s supposed to declare one’s masculinity because it’s in direct opposition to fastidiousness, which is considered a not-very-masculine trait. One becomes habituated to it and the act becomes almost unconscious. It serves no other purpose.
I understand it because I have a man’s point of view. As I stated above, though, I find it unnecessary (and, actually, unbecoming of the gentleman; if civilisation is a veneer, that fact alone is no good reason to tear it off).
But to reiterate: if you must spit, don’t compound things by making a personal insult out of it.
It use to be I dealt with folks who spat frequently. Most were chewing chaw but there were dippers too. They were farmers, ranchers, lumbermen and other assorted individuals in the West and Southwest who used smokeless tobacco often because their occupations weren’t conducive to smoking. I suspect there was also a strong cultural incentive to chew or dip in these groups also. Often times they were spitting before during and after our conversations and heck all the bars in towns still had spittoons. I personally found it offensive but not enough to alienate folks I needed to trust and respect me in able to do my job.
Most of the folks I know now who spit are other bike riders, you really don’t want to swallow some of the bugs to fly into your mouth while cycling.
Most of the time now I don’t mind telling folks off if they are doing something offensive, stupid, cruel or illegal.
Chaw and snoose are another matter. Disgusting, perhaps, but it’s not the same as habitual spitting for no good reason, because with tobacco you have to spit. Well, some people swallow tobacco juice, true, but while some people might find that more mannerly, I think swallowers are basically off their rocker. The habit’s bad enough as it is. In the presence of a chewer I’m less likely to take offense at spitting, but the practice can still be cause for it, depending on when you do it. That’s my point, if anyone’s noticed at all.
I would have a problem with all three scenarios of Nano’s. My inclination would be to ask “What’s the problem?”
It not difficult to imagine situations where I might need to spit along those lines, but there would definitely be an “Excuse me!” and probably a “Sorry about that!” in there somewhere.
Red, I am afraid I spit. Not so much now, in the hot weather. When it’s cold my nose fills up. On my way to work both hands are carrying something, so reaching for a handkerchief or tissue is not really convenient. The walk to work is about ten minutes, but if I used a tissue every time I needed, I would have run out by the time I got there. I make an effort to use the storm drains. (100 points if if goes through the slots, 50 if it hits the grate, zero if I miss.) The snotty nose is the family curse. Both the children have it. And before anyone else says it, yes, it runs in the family.
I always enjoyed cleaning up after various public meeting at our offices. We often had a coffee pot and cups on a table in the back of the room right next to the trash can and door. Folks rarely could be bothered to toss their cups, they’d leave them right under the folding chairs. If you weren’t familiar with the folks attending these meetings you’d likely think few of them finished their coffee from the liquid left in the cups.
I found that doubly offensive, using chaw or dipping is no excuse for poor manners no matter the locale nor is it healthy, in fact it’s honest to goodness bio-hazardous waste. But I don’t even know how to burp or curse so what do I really know about disgusting human behaviours.
If apologies were part of the picture then there would be no reason for me to post the scenarios, and I wouldn’t have bothered, because then there is no problem*. This should be obvious enough. You say you would make apologies, and I agree that that’s the thing to do, but are you saying that you see that as just your personal habit and in the end you don’t see a gaffe when there is no such mitigation?
*(…apart from the spitting itself, of course, but that issue of how others may perceive one’s comportment in general has not been my concern in this case. It never was. I am starting to think people really aren’t getting this. Y’all’re taking about spitting or not spitting in terms of whether or not people should do it at all. I’m not. I’m talking about timing in three - only three - specific situations, and what that timing means. I’m not talking about general distastes or inconveniences. And dwest’s post above (I am no stranger to it) is just confirming my contention: Ya’ll are so not feeling me. At all.)
So is it really the spitting that upsets you or is it just the perfunctory greeting? I really don’t care you understand. For some folks I don’t doubt that spitting has become an unconscious habit that is triggered by a variety of stimuli including greeting someone or farewells. The fact is they are contaminating your environment, it’s as bad as your neighbours thinking it’s OK for their free roaming cat to come over into your yard to defecate and urinate on your property as if it was their own.
Nope. Nope. You’re still not getting it. It’s all there in the OP (did you really read it? Somehow I think you haven’t) and clear as day. I have tried my best to stick to the topic, and it’s not complicated. In fact it’s a gut-fundamental courtesy issue if you read it. I don’t know how many times I have to say the same thing before people snap out of it and say, “Ohhhhh…! That.” I’ve not been beating around the bush here, you know.
Don’t worry. Carry on, everyone; I think I’ve learned enough here.
Obviously you haven’t learned how to shake someone’s hand while grabbing their elbow with your left hand and squeezing their ulnar nerve at the same time in an enthusiastic return greeting or farewell, after they fired the first insult of course.
Obvious! And this is obvious, how? For a man who claims to knowledge of budō, you seem a bit keen to give out your knowledge willy-nilly, and that by way of ranking people you don’t even really know, and yet all I’ve been asking is this: Who understands a dilemma from my viewpoint? With all your talk of nerves and grabs it would seem to me that you would be among the first to say, “Yo.” Guess I was wrong.
I use the phrase “I beg your pardon” to give the individual, who’s behaviour you described, the opportunity to explain themselves. If that doesn’t appear to work I will follow up with a “I’m sorry was there something you wanted to say?”
I’m betting The Gospel of Mark would have something to say about this.
So in other words, there was no reason other than your personal entertainment to post your previous misunderstandings, which would now at one stroke appear to be revealed as having been feigned. That’s what I’m seeing here.
For some folks I don’t doubt that spitting has become an unconscious habit that is triggered by a variety of stimuli including greeting someone or farewells. The fact is they are contaminating your environment, it’s as bad as your neighbours thinking it’s OK for their free roaming cat to come over into your yard to defecate and urinate on your property as if it was their own.
