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| New York (!) named most polite city | |
| 2006-06-21 | |
| NEW YORK - New Yorkers are a polite bunch. No, really, they are. So says Reader’s Digest. The magazine sent reporters “undercover” to 36 cities, in 35 countries, to measure courtesy. New York was the only American city on the list. In a city with a reputation for being in-your-face, New Yorkers seem to be expressing themselves with a new one-finger salute: a raised pinkie. In fact, they seem to have even better manners than people in London, Toronto and Moscow.
This tracks with my experience of living in NYC for 14 years. | |
| Posted by:Chinter Flarong9283 |
| #12 It's just that New York politeness is different from other places' politeness. New York politeness is based on the principle that everyone is busy and needs to get things done. Anything that helps people get things done is good; amything that hurts is bad. All else ic commentary. For example, spending five minutes chatting at the guy at the newsstand at 8am is bad; it blocks other people. Spending a minute at the same newsstand at 10pm is fine; after all, it gets lonely there. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2006-06-21 21:29 |
| #11 Heh, Those of us who have been here forever, and have travelled extensively in other US cities, know this to be true. One caveat. If you are perceived as a non-NYer you get treated better than if you seem like a native. |
| Posted by: DanNY 2006-06-21 19:29 |
| #10 come on....!!! Just cause it's in print doesn't make it so. When you read pieces like this you can be sure it's filed under the heading "promotion". I'm not saying that NYers are rude .... I'm just saying a little common sense is in order here. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-06-21 17:20 |
| #9 Marylanders are my personal fav. No turn indicater is too convenient to use, no space between vehicles is too small to squeeze into, no vehicle is motoring too fast to overtake, no stop sign is too red to run, no motorist is approaching to rapidly to cut off. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-06-21 17:12 |
| #8 Charleston |
| Posted by: 6 2006-06-21 17:09 |
| #7 Well, if you are comparing to cities like Detroit or Philadelphia I guess it could be. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2006-06-21 16:21 |
| #6 Having lived in both California and New York, I joke with my family about the difference in drivers on each coast. When you want to merge in NYC, people flip you the finger and swear at you, but they let you in. When you want to merge in CA, people smile at you but won't give an inch to let you merge. So maybe NYers are blunt with language and gestures, but deep down have more common sense and decency than Californians. That's my experience. |
| Posted by: Jules 2006-06-21 15:26 |
| #5 OK, how did scrappleface get onto MSNBC's server? |
| Posted by: Gir 2006-06-21 13:37 |
| #4 As a resident of Manhattan, all I can say is it must be pretty rough in the other cities they surveyed. |
| Posted by: WhitecollarRedneck 2006-06-21 12:09 |
| #3 Jeez, I musta missed that part of NY. |
| Posted by: mojo 2006-06-21 10:06 |
| #2 I can believe NYC ranked high among world cities, but would rank near the bottom among US metros. But I quibble with their sampling. I would have guessed Japanese citizens rank the most polite, though not the most helpful. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-06-21 09:49 |
| #1 Are YOU looking at ME? I dont see anybody else here... As long as you arent being an idiot (or a Redsox fan) NYers do treat ya pretty good. |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2006-06-21 09:26 |