How the Finnish survive without small talk
bbc.com
bbc.com
I didn’t know what small talk was until I went to study abroad. Most of my foreign classmates often asked me things like ”how are you doing?” etc. and when I literally answered them what I had been up to recently they were very confused.
”Dude...no need to tell your life story, just say ’good’ and that’s it”
I replied ”Why do you ask a question if you don’t care about the answer?”
I learned the hard way, but learned still. :D
That said strangers talk to you in the sauna all the time, and that seems to be both acceptable and encouraged.
The atmosphere suits it well; dimly lit and relaxing. Laying on your back on grass and staring at the stars would inspire similar conversations.
That sums it up for me.
I suppose Finland would be rather autism-friendly in this regard?
A better example would be your friend asking "what you been up to?" and you answered in very detailed manner when your friend might have been expecting a brief answer like: "not much" or "I've been busy".
During a break, we were seated in a table of five and this British guy sits with us for a while and asks some generic questions, but soon leaves our table because he wants to meet the other students, too. Then one of the Finnish students next to me asks ironically: "So... was that supposed to be that famous small talk?", making many of us smirk.
Though admittedly I used to work with an Irish guy whose sole chat-up line was 'are ye ridin?' and who had considerable success.
When I felt it was time for bed, we both went upstairs. I went to go to my room, on my own, and she said "no, we'll use my room". Or words to that effect. At no point, up till then, had it occurred to me there was anything between us. Just friends getting drunk.
No idea if this is typical but it was a very pleasant surprise to my teenage self.
As much as smalltalk is unneeded in everyday life, having a script that brings out some general background ("so what do you do?", "are you from around here?", "how do you know {host}?") does help when strangers are looking for common ground where they can talk more deeply.
You do both of those and then you sneak to someone and ask them anything. It might well be "how do you know the host?" But Finns are quite flexible with the subjects because there is no culture of what you ought to speak about. You can ask anything, you don't have to ask anything. But do expect to get a throughout and honest answer.
It's great if you're imaginative and curious or if you want to be left alone. But if you fall in the middle it can get difficult.
Bullshit questions that you ask in hopes of stumbling into something interesting to talk about (ie how well do you know the host) is the essence of smalltalk.
We just continue starting with the useless questions even if we already have an actual topic to work with ;)
It seemed to work for them. Actually talking to a girl also worked if I remember correctly.
PS we don't believe in smalltalk... :)
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/opinion/the-how-are-you-c...
I think most people forget this, that you have to learn that a lot of conversation is not literal, it is opaque code for something else.
I am still a pretty literal conversationalist but I can translate fluently.
A friend had a great anecdote about his first meal with his girlfriend's family. The father asked, "is there any salt?" and my friend answered "yes" and just continued eating. He really had no idea that people say things like that instead of what they mean, which is "please pass me the salt," because his family would always just come out and say something more literal.
People who are used to using indirect language are usually shocked that there is any other way to talk.
Alice: "Do you know whether Carol will come to the party?"
Bob: "She will come, but somewhat later. I think she will be there in half an hour."
Alice: "I am not interested in whether she will come or not. If I wanted to know that information, I would simply have asked you whether she will come and if you did not know, you would simply have answered 'I don't know'. But this is not the question that I asked. I just wanted to know whether you have the knowledge whether she will come or not and that is why i formulated the question exactly this way and not differently."
Alice wanted to know if BOB had built a social graph of people attending the party.
BTW, your comment was pretty funny either way.
Because Alice wanted to find out whether Bob and Carol know each other well enough that Bob knows whether Carol will come or not.
IMO Alice seems rude and even manipulative, first asking a question, then lecturing the person who answees the question in a perfectly valid way.
The normal thing to do in such a case (where I grew up and where I live now) would be to accept the answer as it 1. Answers the question at hand. 2. Is a perfect non-offensive interpretation of the intent of the question.
> Alice: "Do you know whether Carol will come to the party?"
Bob: Yes, I know. (or No, I don't know).
Awkward silence. What a strange way to conduct a conversation.
Bob programs in Python.
The other way (as witnessed in your friend's story) can be.
I grew up in Italy, where asking “how are you doing” is not uncommon. Only difference: people actually expect a short summary of what you’ve been up to...
So, in most of the US at least, remember that small talk can be made easier by talking recent sports news.
Implicit in the question is, "How much are you looking to talk?" and "how close do you feel to the person asking?"
Also encoded is my expectation of conversation. If I say it casually or to a group, I am expecting a casual response. If I slow it down and emphasize "Are" or "You", I'm providing subtext that I am expecting a longer conversation or are genuinely interested in a longer conversation that can dive into more personal matters. If I know someone isn't doing well (death in the family, etc), it can slow down but not have the increased pitch of the other greeting, inviting knowledge that we're already past that.
When responding, I have the opportunity to interrupt the normal flow in both polite and impolite forms. All of this is highly contextual so that the "simple" answer is to say "Good, and you?" but there's subtext to learn.
You can say "I'm tired" or "Rough day" or, you can tell something that happened recently.
"How are you doing" -> "Well, my dog passed away last night, so ..."
Or
"I've been up all night studying, so kind of scattered"
Or
"Well I just won the CS101 competition, so, stoked!"
If you ever get a chance to listen to a South African radio call-in show, you will hear just about every caller ask the show host/DJ how he or she is before airing their view. It can be irritating listening to the show host say I am fine 100 times.
I would be interested to know what standard Japanese practice is. In my mind (informed only by stereotype) they'd lean toward the ask-about-the-family end of the spectrum too.
Thank goodness for self-service checkouts these days where we don’t have to be bothered to get that message across, though.
(It's tougher with phone calls, especially when some customer service rep is clearly being recorded and under orders to follow a script; I don't really know what to do there except explicitly say "I know this isn't your fault and you don't have a choice, but I don't want any of what you're offering.")
If you work in retail, you can see middle age white women get away with behavior (entitlement, rage, abuse) that would normally get cops called were they a different person. Customer service in the US is just straight broken.
I remember distinctly some "queer" conversations with suppliers, we had German engineers and of course approved and compliant to norms projects, in other countries if you called a hardware supplier asking for (say) 1000 hex bolts, 16 mm (M16) diameter, 100 mm long, class 8.8 grade, zinc, nach DIN 931, they would simply state if they had them available and how much they would cost, while in Germany there was always the question "What are you going to use them for?".
They were ( mind you I appreciated it, even if sometimes it was excessive) wanting to make sure that we were asking the "right" product for the intended use, and in many cases (that was waay too many years ago) we had to fax them parts of the projects so that they could make sure before even telling us if they could provide the goods.
For some reason, I do find the US standard more facile than either of the poles. Taciturn cultures like the Finns have obvious authenticity because people talk for reasons, but very high interaction cultures have their own sort of sincerity: people talking idly because they're enjoying the act of conversation. Trading a few sentences as pure courtesy misses both marks, and often feels more draining than a much longer conversation.
(Now I wonder if this is tied to US tipping and sales cultures, since "act blandly nice" becomes an important transaction for a lot of people. Obviously it's not the whole story, but I do find even UK conversation rather different than the US pattern.)
It's not really odd at all that an article that is part of a BBC Travel series treats the UK as the baseline norm.
One of the benefits of smalltalk in shops is that if you have a question you don't have to interrupt anybody. You're already having a conversation with a clerk so you might as well ask a question about the merchandise. I don't have to get anybody's attention. I'm not advocating for small talk here but merely trying to explain that it is not without benefits.
The idea that smalltalk is "feigned" doesn't make sense to me, I'm not sure how that word could be applied here. To give some context, in the US there are definitely two different types of smiles. One type of smile expresses happiness and another type of smile is used for polite social interactions. These expressions don't look similar and you wouldn't confuse the two, at least instinctually. Your instinctual response to a polite smile (amygdala) will recognize that it does not express happiness, but if your higher thought processes (visual cortex) think it expresses happiness then the mismatch will make you feel uneasy. If you think of the polite smile as feigned happiness, it seems insincere, but it is not feigned happiness... it is sincere politeness. If you are from a culture that does not smile to strangers it will naturally seem insincere to you unless you get used to it.
Ever talk to an American waiter about this? Often they will complain about their customers and how much they hate them, but they still have to be smiley and make small talk because 1) they feel they won’t get tips without it, and 2) their bosses insist on it.
"To feign" means to do something in a way that it looks like you're doing something else, so I could feign that I care about you and care about your well-being, but secretly I don't care about you and I hate you. However, small talk is not this. Small talk is just polite conversation that does not cover any issues of real relevance but merely demonstrates friendly intentions or a desire for positive interactions. So when I say, "How are you?", if this is small talk, I am not actually feigning interest. We both understand that I am not actually expressing any interest in your well being, I am only trying to communicate that I want to have a positive interaction with you. In Linguistics this phenomenon is called "pragmatics", and it is the phenomenon that the actual meaning of an utterance can be completely different from its literal meaning. Another example of pragmatics is "Do you have a pen?" This is literally a question of fact, but most likely it is a request to borrow a pen. Someone saying "Do you have a pen?" is not feigning interest in whether you have a pen any more than someone saying "How are you doing today?" is feigning interest in your well being. If you ask me, "Do you have a pen?" and I reply, "Yes," with no further comment or action I'm being rude, just as I would be rude if a sales clerk asked me, "How are you doing today?" and I started rambling about my upcoming divorce and how my mother was recently diagnosed with cancer.
That's not to say waiters don't feign interest or feign happiness. Yes, many people in the service industry are required to "perform" or express certain attitudes. This can be emotionally draining. Small talk is not this; small talk is genuine and it does not express interest or emotion. "Feigned" small talk doesn't make sense logically.
If you think it is creepy then you are applying standards from another culture to our own. You have every right to make these judgments but I don't see a case here for the supremacy of one single culture's interpretation of small talk.
The example of a pen is not a metaphor. It is another example of the underlying linguistic phenomenon (pragmatics) in action. Just like the meaning of “Do you have a pen?” cannot be deduced from its structure, the meaning of “How are you doing today?” cannot be deduced from its structure. You are required to use context in both cases, and for the same reason. I am not sure why you are calling it a metaphor, since I literally described it as "another example of pragmatics". It is not a similar phenomenon, it is literally the same phenomenon in action.
If you wish to learn more about pragmatics, there are many resources on the subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics
If you interpret small talk as "feigned interest", then you are in error.
Nothing wrong with that. There's certainly too much of the opposite in the world.
That definitely can be one way to meet one’s life partner. But it’s so grating from the other side, even if the request is very polite and non pushy.
Some people live for the human contact, others don’t want any. Honestly it’s a PITA when the social norm puts an obligation to respond, even briefly, to not seem rude.
If it’s a protocol, there should be an option to just drop the incomming packets and go on with one’s life.
That unbalance is the interesting part I think, just like so many things in life where changing perspective is needed to deal with people.
About books and articles...It’s another topic, but I don’t know, I find a lot of these have a “how to fix your personality” angle that is just innapropriate and/or unproductive. Becoming an extravert or small talk guru shouldn’t be the goal. And, as you say, developping strategies to have less people noise and more mindful communication is usually so personal, while not being that hard, that it’s not a very good subject for a self help book.
This. Now if any of those influencers could start a campaign to make a short signal socially acceptable for "drop communications".
I vote for making an X with your index fingers.
And perhaps you are discounting that many people make their own judgement call based on the interactions they have had with Americans.
I am not sure it has much to do with tourists per se. On the gripping hand, I am in Palma de Mallorca at the moment, which many Europeans travel to for the beach and party life: there are some definite stereotypes for the Poms and the Germans!
Every visitor faces bigotry, some fair, some unfair.
American's can get plenty of positive reaction too. At least most people have some idea about your country and customs from watching movies: try coming from a third world nation...
But also there are a lot of Finns who seem to enjoy having loud phone-calls of their own, whilst sat next to you on the tram/bus. I find that more annoying to be honest.
I agree that there can often be far too much noise in public spaces, but that’s probably the wrong target to pick!
What do you mean by "Violate personal spaces"?
> I never encountered a blind commuter but I'm sure they exist.
One reason might be if bo effort wss made to make public transport easy to use for people with disabilities.
> Many of us Finns find it annoying as it is against
> local customs (it resembles situation where somebody
> comes too close to my personal space). This constant
> chit-chat prevents me concentrating on my own thoughts.
> I wouldn't mind if they would talk about some important
> things or keep their chit-chat short, but I don't want
> to be exposed to this kind of noise about trivial
> things for hours.
Like fi358, I consider subjecting someone to unwanted noise to be same as violating their personal space by coming too close to them. To me recorded announcements that repeat and repeat mindlessly the same thing over and over again and serve no purpose is a violation of personal space.
> to make public transport easy to use for people with disabilities...
You are right of course. But someone in wheelchair and a blind person have different requirements. Where I live most busses can accommodate people with wheelchair. People also are extremely helpful to blind people. I see ordinary people helping blinds cross the street. So if a blind person boards a bus all he has to do is to tell his stop to the driver or to a passenger near him.
This part however still sticks out IMO:
> Like fi358, I consider subjecting someone to unwanted noise to be same as violating their personal space by coming too close to them.
I'd say there's a fairly huge difference between making noise outside my house (or worse inside my house) and making automatic announcements on a bus.
When traveling in the public we have to live with other people.
I agree. But in the case of the announcements, it's not the other passengers who are making the noise but a huge and mindless bureaucracy who makes the announcements only because it can. The bureaucrats or decision makers do not use public transportation and they don’t have to listen to it everyday. The trains or buses come with the technology to make announcements and managers activate it. Passengers are not asked if they want or need such announcements.
I remember subway in New York in the 80's. They were filthy, covered with graffiti, no air conditioning... but there were no recorded announcements. The conductor would make announcements if he felt like it. There is a huge difference between a live human being making the announcement and a robotic voice repeating the same thing over and over again. I remember getting in those hot and dirty trains and reading my book even if I had to stand up. You can block out human voice easily but not a recorded synthetic announcement.
Also these announcements are useless. They serve no purpose. It's not the train's duty to tell passengers the stop they need to get off. It's the duty of the passenger to know where to get out. It's no big deal if a passenger misses his stop.
But it is a huge deal to me if I cannot read my book during my commute. If I'm in the train 2 hours every day, the bureaucrats are stealing 2 hours of good reading time from me. Why? There is no reason.
Imagine traveling in a quiet train everyday! What a great feeling. I would look forward to such a commute because I can work best in busses and trains.
Sorry for the rant. But to me, these recorded announcements are one of the absurdest things in city living.
It's possible to train your consciousness to some degree and ignore noise. I find the times when I'm bothered by announcements to be the times I'm fuzzy anyway. I carry big headphones for such occasions :-)
Governments and their branches are legal organisms. These organisms exploit the individual. The individual has no power against his master.
In this case, the individual is the customer but he has no say about the quality of his commute. The legal organism in charge of transportation does not bother to ask its customers if they want recorded announcements of stations. The majority of the customers, probably over %90, take the same train everyday and know their stop by heart. They would get off in the right station in their sleep. They don’t need to be told where to get off. If the legal organism asked its customers if they want announcements, the majority would say "don't talk to us. Leave us alone. Let us read a book, sleep or daydream. Just don't bother us and don't try to be nice to us. Don’t make condescending announcements. Just shut up. Give us a clean, safe and fast ride and get out of the way.” But the master never asks its subjects and never listens. The individual accepts whatever the legal organism gives to him.
You may think that accepting the violation of your personal space by recorded announcements without protest is a trivial issue. But people who accept voluntarily trivial harrassments by their master will voluntarily accept big harassments. Like when the same organism will want to take his naked pictures while crossing its borders.
I was young enough to adapt quickly, but still I struggle with insincere greetings such as in some shops here now have US style greeters at the door. Find it hard to respond to their "Hi/Welcome/How are you" as I know they do not want a conversation, so why interfere with my personal space...
HELO flurdy
WTF personal space!
Small talk is a protocol. There is information exchange. Possibly the Finns are trying to out do the machine but even machines agree small talk is necessary :)
don't worry, everyone hates that. i mentally flip them the bird.
• Visitors with unique needs or problems checked for; • Visitors who prefer interaction made more likely to be repeat customers; • Determination of employee skill level at interaction; • A touch point for visitor questions or concerns; • Business branded as being interested in their customers; • Control over setting of social morays; • etc. etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_be_an_Alien
[0] In England everything is different. You must understand that when people say ‘England’, they sometimes mean ‘Great Britain’ (England, Scotland and Wales), sometimes ‘the United Kingdom’ (England Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), sometimes the ‘British Isles’ (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) – but never just England.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
It makes more sense like that to me, but perhaps the article just got it wrong
Spreken is zilver, zwijgen is goud.
German:
Reden ist Silber, Schweigen ist Gold.
And probably many other languages besides. Proverbs are usually not limited to a single language though they may change subtly in translation.
Moff Jerjerrod: Lord Vader. This is an unexpected pleasure. We are honored by your presence.
Darth Vader: You may dispense with the pleasantries, Commander. I am here to put you back on schedule.
Is Jerjerrod's line something they wouldn't say? Would it be confusing that someone would need to tell someone to skip the pleasantries?
But given that Moff knows who/what Darth Vader is it is not supprising that he takes a subservient stance when talking to him. Kind of the same way i'm very careful around american cops. I would never address a norwegian cop by sir, but i don't even think twice before using sir/mam when talking to a us cop.
But in these cases its fear. It has nothing to do with pleasentries. It's the gun in the holster or the knowledge that he can forcechoke you if he wants to. ( at least thats my interpretation of that encounter in rotj ).
So no. I don't think they would say that in any normal encounter. I know i wouldn't other than in jest.
Jerjerrod's line is phatic, but I think it's less small talk than deference or avoidance. The message is something like "I'm surprised and concerned someone with your status is involved in my work, please don't hurt me", which seems fairly universal.
Darth Vader enters. Moff stops what he is doing, turns toward Vader and looks at him. Nothing is said, it is obvious to both that this is a surprise for Moff. There is a pause. Moff is waiting for Vader to indicate the purpose of this visit. It goes without saying that there is some purpose or Vader would not be here as he does not make courtesy calls; if he did, he would probably have brought a bouquet of flowers or a bottle of wine or such. If Vader would not say anything for a longer time, Moff would ask. But here Vader says: "I am here to put you back on schedule". Moff nods. Or at most says "Understood/OK". If Moff does not agree with the assessment that he is late, then he could start negotiating the issue, but as I recall from the film, he was aware of being late, so what is the point of arguing a fact.
In an older time, I think Moff would have said "Lord Vader" to acknowledge him. Otherwise the dialogue would have gone more or less as above.
That's my take of it, at least.
Finns use it exactly in same way as American would say "your majesty". It would likely be a sarcastic remark coming from a Finn. So the meaning is not that far off.
Conversely I find when I do mention little things in small talk with people they actually tend to remember more than I think they will. Not everyone, but there's definitely people that do and it does feel nice.
When gnomAD, the current largest population sequencing project clustered Euro genomes together the biggest divide was between Finns and non Finns.
The lack of small talk is the norm in Finland, and, as a south-european, it takes a while to get used to.
The article doesn't mention that there is a noticeable difference between boys and girls though. My experience is that girls are much more willing to engage in small talk in social situations.
Men, including colleagues, can be really difficult to crack. Some men really open up only when alcol is involved - another aspect of Finnish society that the article overlooked.
This article helps explain it — there's less idle conversation, yes, but when conversing, it's actually much easier and straightforward to talk about deep and interesting things. And if you want to be quiet and just think, people are cool with that too.
It's really a lovely place. Very clean and beautiful, too. Very much worth visiting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past
The verbal exchanges appear so "alien" that they are highly facscinating to me.
I'm quite bad at small talk but I try to 'force' it as it is seen as something common where I live. My wife usually does tell me that I'm bad at it if she happens to be with me.
I'm not sure why, there's just a lot of awkward pauses.
Damn! doesn't sound like luck to me ... and I'm far from Finnish. (At least I think so, even though I did once dive from sauna into ice-covered water.)
How do the Finns cue interest in others, how do they cue rejection?
How quaint!
I believe this is characterizing the sentiment of the article much better than what the title conveys. In my experience there are different types of small talk. The infamous kind found in the US is not the only definition of small talk. In many cultures small talk simply means talking without getting too personal - in the US this seems to be accomplished by exchanging what the Finnish girl refers to as "bullshit".
> With two million saunas in the country, which are enjoyed fully nude (generally gender-segregated, although that rule tends to be thrown out in the company of friends), the Finnish seem to have no problem with getting up close and personal. But when clothes are on, the bets are off.
Also an exaggeration in my experience. You can very well talk to strangers in Finland. Just that talking too shallow stuff is maybe not that popular.
> Thanks to television and films (which are mostly broadcast in English) she was already acquainted with non-Finnish communication styles.
That is such a dumb and sad thing to say. I really love the downtoearth friendliness of Finnish people. There is really no need to educate them - and certainly not by means of television.
> When asked for an example of how she wishes Finnish society were more open,
Now we go from talking less to a claim that Finnish society should be more open. It couldn't be further from the truth. If you have been to Helsinki you will have noticed that the society is super open and embracing refugees as well as people with handicaps. Almost everything is accessible to blind people or those using a wheelchair.
> There are more hypotheses than answers for why Finnish culture has a veil of silence permanently stitched in place.
And that is a good thing. Silence and the ability to maintain silence when there is no need for attention seeking behavior is such an important thing. It's awesome.
> “When I was [back] in Finland, I was almost offended when I went to get a cup of coffee from a coffee shop and they didn’t say anything,” he recalled. “It was just ‘what do you want?’. How can you say that? Are you not going to ask anything before that? Oh, yeah. This is my home country. This is just the way things are.
That is just half of the truth. They just won't pretend to be your super-nice new friend like it can be observed in Starbucks for example. But they will be actually very friendly.
In no country I have been treated consistently exceptionally friendly by customer serive in shops or bars than in Finland / Helskinki. It's absolutely stunning how authentically friendly Finnish people are.
---
I would rather tend to label typical Finnish communication as "healthy" - and there is a simple reason for it being like that. Finnish society itself is super healthy - just take a day-trip to Helsinki and you will feel it immediatly that Finland is doing something very right with regards to equality in the society and presence of culture.
I can't explain it very well, but smalltalk is talking to just pass the time until something else happens. We tend to think of talking to someone as a bit more meaningful, and meant to create or deepen a relationship, so if we know that we're never going to see someone again, we tend to just not make an effort to talk to them.
Your point about the "super-nice new friend" rings especially true, as that's what I find most uncomfortable. It just seems extremely fake, and that's not to say there aren't friendly people in the US, it's just that specific interaction where they're being fake-super-friendly as part of a transaction or business relationship.
#sisu
Only almost formal, exceedingly polite and necessary conversations are part of the social norm, and you see, it is OK for a few billions or so.
This does not describe Finland at all. If you go to a convenience store in Japan and buy a pack of gum, the clerk will go through an elaborate script of welcoming you to the store, reciting how much your purchase costs, how much cash they receive from you, how much change they give you in return, and thanking you for your custom. In Finland, more likely than not you can complete exactly the same transaction without either party saying a word (except maybe the clerk telling you the total).
A Norwegian husband took his French wife to live in Norway. She was at home while he went to work, and after a few months he invited another couple home to dinner. Most of the conversation happened in French or English as she had not yet picked up much Norwegian, but when leaving, she wanted to try.
After they left, the husband asked her "why did you say 'pose' when they were leaving?" She asked if she'd gotten it wrong - it was what the cashiers always said as she was leaving the shop, so she'd assumed it was "goodbye". (for the non-Norwegians: 'pose' means bag, as in a shopping bag; they were asking if she wanted one) The idea that a one word utterance as she was leaving could be an insignificant question rather than wishing her good bye had not crossed her mind.
Of course, with the additional difficulty of Danish pronunciation, I wasn't able to search for the words, and didn't try and repeat them.
(pose → purse, if you like to learn with cognates.)
So small talk, then.
Not necessarily. It seems like major motivators (not necessarily consciously realized) are to show off and to talk about oneself.
Cosplay of intelligence is another big motivator - how could one possibly look like he have nothing to say?!
Edit: "Welcome to the store [some mini sales pitch]" might count as small talk, but is not what most people have in mind.
It’s so funny when sometimes the clerk has been doing it that job so long that it’s not proper words anymore and you’re not even expected to parse it correctly, it just doesn’t matter.
I don't think I've ever paid for a purchase without being told what the total is or being asked if I would like a receit.
Like ever.
I started to feel a bit more relaxed when I could go to the corner-shop and buy food without having to understand much Finnish, and the constant repetition helped me learn my numbers.
(Now and again a staff-member will confuse me by asking "Would you like anything else?" or "Is that all?" which throws me off. The only other questions I expect to be asked are "Would you like a bag?" or "Do you have a store-card?".)
Watch any kind of TV show from back then and notice the formality in the clothing of presenters, the substantially more discernible pronunciation, the vocabulary. The cultural shift towards informality is a recent trend in the West.
There was also a cultural fashion in the US to use a "Mid-Atlantic accent". Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent :
> The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent,[1][2][3] is a consciously acquired accent of English, intended to blend together the "standard" speech of both American English and British Received Pronunciation. Spoken mostly in the early 20th century by Americans, it is not a vernacular American accent native to any location, but rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, an affected set of speech patterns whose "chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so".[4] The accent is, therefore, best associated with the American upper class, theater, and film industry of the 1930s and 1940s,[5] largely taught in private independent preparatory schools especially in the American Northeast and in acting schools.[6] The accent's overall use sharply declined following the Second World War.
On the UK side of the Atlantic, the Received Pronunciation was considered the appropriate form of English in BBC broadcasts, leading to "BBC English", which again reflected upper class use. As I recall, it wasn't until the 1980s when BBC announcers were more free to use regional dialects.
So when you view history through TV, remember that you are also seeing it through a upper-class lens.
These days, in tech certainly but across many industries, "dressing up" is mostly an outlier.
Many companies are trying to emulate west coast tech companies. Especially Silicon Valley. I’ve seen a lot of initiatives geared toward “millennials” in a couple big companies I worked at. Including getting rid of the khaki business casual.