The rules of male and female bonding-talk reinforce the goose-and-gander point, but beneath striking (potentially dazzling) surface differences, they turn out to have critical features in common, including prohibition of boasting, prescription of humour and abhorrence of ‘earnestness’, polite hypocrisy and the triumph of etiquette over reason. Finally, the long-goodbye rule highlights (again) the importance of embarrassment and ineptitude in English social interactions – our apparently congenital inability to handle simple matters such as greeting and parting with any consistency or elegance –
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