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Are manners dead? Cellphones and social networking may be killing off the old civilities and good graces, but a new generation of etiquette gurus is rising to make old-fashioned protocols relevant to a new generation.
礼仪已死？尽管手机和社交网络可能正在扼杀传统礼节与优雅举止，但新一代的礼仪专家们正在致力于将似乎已经过时的礼仪变得与新一代人的生活息息相关。
Their goal: to help young people navigate thorny, tech-age minefields, like invites on social networking sites and online dating, not to mention actual face-to-face contact with people.
他们的目标是：帮助年轻人来规避科技时代中那些令人棘手的雷区，比如社交网站上的邀请以及在线交友，更不用说实际生活中人与人之间面对面的接触了。
Perhaps the fastest growing area of social advice is what’s been termed “netiquette”. There are online tutorials on using emoticons in business e-mails, being discreet when posting on social networks and re-posting too many micro blog messages.
或许在一系列社交指南中，风头正劲的就要属“网络礼仪”部分了。网上出现了很多有关公务邮件中表情符号的使用指导、社交网站发帖以及转发微博的注意事项。
Young people “are getting sick of the irony and rudeness that is so prevalent in their online lives”, said Jane Pratt, editor in chief of XoJane, a women’s lifestyle website. “The return of etiquette is in part a response to the harshness of the interactions they are having in the digital sphere.”
“网络生活中充斥的毒舌与无礼令年轻人头疼不已，XoJane女性生活网站的主编简·普瑞特表示。“某种程度上，礼仪的回归是他们对那些令人反感的网络互动的回应。”
“Nice is very cool right now,” she added.
“如今，友好才是最酷的事情，”她补充道。
The social quandaries seem to be endless. Are you obligated to respond to party invitations on Sina Weibo? Is it rude to listen to your iPod while sharing a ride with someone else?
社交难题似乎没完没了。你有义务去回复新浪微博上的聚会邀请吗？与人共乘一车时用iPod听歌是不是很没有礼貌？
When Daniel Post Senning, the great great grandson of Emily Post, a well-known etiquette writer in the US, was working on the 18th edition of Emily Post’s Etiquette, he found it impossible to cover technology in a single chapter. Instead, he devoted an entire book to it, Emily Post’s Manners in a Digital World: Living Well Online.
美国著名礼仪作家艾米莉·博斯特 的玄孙丹尼尔·普斯特·森宁在编纂第18版的《西方礼仪集萃》时发现，科技方面很难用一章讲清楚。而他就这一点写出了《艾米莉·博斯特的网络礼仪》这本书。
The book tackles questions like whether one should announce a serious illness on a social networking site. (Yes, Senning said, but medical updates should be confined to close friends and family.)
书中解答了诸如一个人是否应该在社交网站上发布身患重病的消息之类的问题。（森宁表示：答案是“可以”，但治疗状况应仅对家人和密友公开。）
Even the gurus who position themselves as the embodiment of Old World civility feel obliged to tackle 21st-century conundrums.
即使是那些古典礼仪专家们也感到自己有责任来解答21世纪的新难题。
Charles MacPherson runs a school for butlers in Canada. In his new book The Butler Speaks, MacPherson talks about whether one may keep a cellphone on the table during a dinner party.
查尔斯·麦克弗森在加拿大经营一所男管家学校。在他的新书《男管家的话》中，麦克弗森探讨了晚宴时是否应将手机放在桌上的问题。
“It is never OK to leave your cellphone on the dinner table,” he said. “If you must go out and anticipate a call, first inform your hostess of the situation and keep your cellphone on vibrate and in your pocket or on your lap. In the event that it does ring, excuse yourself from the table — don’t explain why, just a simple ‘excuse me’ — and leave the dining room before taking the call.”
“把手机放在餐桌上是大忌，”他说。“如果你不得不起身去接电话，那么首先一定要将情况告知主人，并且将手机调成振动放在包里或者腿上。如果手机响了，表示歉意然后起身离开——不用解释原因，只要说声‘不好意思’就好——然后走出餐厅再接电话。”
Indeed, there is a retro allure to etiquette that appeals to 20-somethings, said Pam Krauss, a publisher of several etiquette books. “There’s a whole generation of young people for whom etiquette, much like cooking, sewing, and other ‘home arts’, was not passed down from their parents or grandparents the way it would have been in years past,” Krauss told The New York Times.
的确，对于二十几岁的年轻人来说，礼仪有一种复古的魅力，曾发行过多本礼仪指导书的出版商帕姆·克劳斯表示。“对于整个年轻一代来说，礼仪就像厨艺、缝纫及其他的‘居家艺术’一样，并没能像在过去那样从父母或者祖父母身上传承下来。”克劳斯在接受《纽约时报》采访时说道。
