Whisper it. Etiquette is back in fashion, and proof of the new trend is increasingly apparent, writes Marianne O'Malley.

The burger 'n' pizza generation of finger eaters are beginning to realise cutlery is useful and holding a door or offering your seat is not the act of a wimp. "Respect" is a new salutation and courtesy, it seems, is the new rebellion.

Where once street cred demanded contemptuous, sullen behaviour, now consideration and hand-written "thank you" notes are à la mode with the avant-garde. A sprinkling of French, incidentally, is also fashionable again.

Smythson of Bond Street, stationers to the Queen, have an ever-increasing loyal clientele in Ireland for their wildly expensive bespoke stationery. And after many lean years, the sales of etiquette books are booming, particularly during these social summer months.

Hodges Figgis says etiquette guidebooks, notably Debrett's Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners, is flying off the shelves. And in pragmatic America and mainland Europe, classes in deportment and good manners are on the increase. Even in coy old Ireland, where nobody wants to be seen trying too hard, public relations firms will discreetly arrange one-to-one classes in etiquette for very private clients.

But we need to be wary: etiquette is just the epidermis of good manners, a layer of civility and politeness that has no intrinsic value other than being a set of tried and tested rules that help deal with the complexity of living and social interaction. But for the status-conscious, their knowledge of the "dos and don'ts" of polite society is riddled with hypocrisy and snobbery. It's their weapon, used to sniff out impostors and rank them in a class pecking order - the "U" from the "non-U".

However, André Compte-Sponville, professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne and best-selling author of A Short Treatise on the Great Virtues, values politeness as the original virtue and the foundation on which all others are built. He considers politeness and good manners an outward reflection of our internal desire to consider others.

And according to Compt-Sponville, consideration for others is the basis of any moral and ethical philosophy. He recognises that although good manners can be just a superficial veneer, they precede and prepare the way for genuine empathy and consideration.

Terry Prone, director of Carr Communications, agrees: "People assume that behaviour follows attitude.

The great thing we have found is that if you train people to behave properly, their attitudes change to match their improved behaviour."

She explains: "Managers increasingly have to take account of laws related to bullying. And bullying, in all its forms, is essentially a breach of good manners. Train people to comply and they start to register the individuality of the employee or colleague."

Another commercial reality is that a lot of business negotiation takes place in a social context. And staff with an abundance of technical skill and ability may have no knowledge of the protocols of the dining table, garden party or golf course.

As Prone confirms. "Although 99 per cent of our business communication courses relate to the transmission and understanding of content, we also have a module related to aspects of etiquette, to prevent the kinds of incidents that are becoming urban legends. Like the executive who drinks from the finger bowl or the one who tries to chew and swallow the leaves of an artichoke."

A common misconception about etiquette is that it is focused on the irrelevant - 101 ways to address royalty, for example,and how to dismiss the butler. And as most of us don't anticipate spending too much time in aristocratic company, with or without the aid of a butler, these rules would appear to have little application in our modern life.

Emily Post, the American doyenne of etiquette, wrote her etiquette manifesto in 1922 and it's still in print. The 16th edition is updated and revised to tackle our evolving lifestyles. From cyberspace to health clubs, office romances to sexism, and covering the gritty reality of divorce and second families, the advice offered is charming (of course) but also surprisingly level-headed and practical.

Since the 1960s, anti-establishment heroes have led the way in ridiculing conformity and disparaging the petty middle-class habit of politeness. We, the enlightened young parents of the time, swore we would raise our children free from the self-doubt and hypocrisy that tainted our own upbringing - the "don't make a show of us!" school of child rearing. Self-expression and autonomy became the principles by which our self-determining two-year-olds were allowed rule the roost, while we, the parents, tried shedding our hang-ups and our manners with personal development and assertiveness training.

Our children grew without the constraints of constantly nagged "say, thank you!" or "it's rude to interrupt!" But the pendulum of change continues to swing, and now they're hungry for finesse and style after the exhaustion of the in-your-face competitively self-obsessed 90s.

The "caring and sharing" prediction for that affluent decade is finally starting to happen. Wouldn't you know it, just as we've learned to be assertive and tell-it-like-it-is, it's back to watching our Ps and Qs again.