This sounds simple enough, but I think this is actually a huge box of yet unresolved complexities. A few generations ago where formal politeness and etiquette was more socially mandatory, the idea was that the rules go both ways: they forbid ways of speaking many people would feel offended by, on the other hand, if people still feel offended by approved forms of speaking, it is basically their problem. So people were expected to work on what they give and what they receive (i.e. toughen up to be able to deal with socially approved forms of offense): this is very similar how programmers define interface / data exchange standards like TCP/IP. Programmers have a rule of be conservative in what you send and be liberal in what you accept / receive (i.e. 2015-03-27 is the accepted XML date format and always send this, but if your customers are mainly Americans better accept 03-27-2015 too, just in case) and this too is how formal etiquette worked. As you can sense, I highly approve of formal etiquette although I don't actually use it on forums like this as it would make look like a grandpa. I think a formal, rules-based, etiquette oriented world was far more autism-spectrum friendly than todays unspoken-rules world. I also think todays "creep epidemic" (i.e. lot of women complaining about creeps) is due to the lack of formal courting rules making men on the spectrum awkward. Back then when womanizing was all about dancing waltzers on balls it was so much more easier for autism-spectrum men who want formal rules and algorithms to follow. I think I could and perhaps should spin it like "lack of formal etiquette esp. in courting is ableist and neurotypicalist". Of course, formal etiquette also means sometimes dealing with things that feel hurtful but approved and the need to toughen up for cases like this. Here I see a strange thing. Remember when in the 1960's the progressive people of that era i.e. the hippies were highly interested in stuff like Zen? I approve of th