The English expect each other to observe the rules of queuing, feel highly offended(冒犯) when these rules are broken, but lack the confidence or social skills to express their annoyance in a straightforward manner. In other countries, this is not a problem: in America, where a queue-jumper has committed a kind of rudeness rather than a sin(罪过), the response is a loud warning: the offender is simply told "Hey, you, get back in line!" or words to that effect. On the European continent, the reaction tends to be loud and argumentative; in some other parts of the world, queue-jumpers are likely to get away with the offense. Only rarely do the English actually speak up and tell the jumper to go to the back of the queue.
Queuing is almost a national pastime for the English, who automatically arrange themselves into orderly lines at bus stops, shop counters, ice-cream vans, entrances, exits and lifts.
In 1946, a Hungarian humorist described queuing as English "national passion". "On the continent," he said, "if people are waiting at a bus stop they walk around in a seemingly relaxed fashion. When the bus arrives they run towards it quickly… An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one." In an update over thirty years later in 1977 he confirmed that this was still the case. After nearly another thirty years nothing much seems to have changed.
In many cases in Britain, queue-jumping is effectively prevented by non-verbal signals alone. When someone is considering jumping a queue, the queuers will start looking at him sideways, through narrowed, suspicious eyes. Then they move a bit closer to the person in front of them, just in case the jumper might try to insert himself in the gap. Frowns, glares and raised eyebrows—accompanied by heavy sighs, pointed coughs—are usually the worst that the person will suffer if he jumps a queue. Faced with all this the jumper will think better of it and retreat to the back of the queue.
