Yes, ma'am. No, thank you.

Outside fork first. Offer a hand to shake. RSVP in a timely manner.

Joey Ivansco / jivansco@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

A graffiti artist's piece in the Krog Street Tunnel is not to be covered over by another graffiti artist.

Andy Sharp/ asharp@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Computer programmers are advised to read the manual before posting a question on an online forum.

RELATED LINKS: • Blog: Which matters of etiquette burn you up? LIVING Latest Headlines: Zoo raises $40K in campaign to keep pandas  Georgia Aquarium to welcome 10 millionth visitor  Aquarium adds 4 sandbar sharks to exhibit  Cellphones serve as '$300 baby rattle'  Athens ranked among best places to live  • More Living Stories • Living photo galleries • Georgia Aquarium news and photos • Zoo Atlanta news and photos

At some point, we learn basic etiquette to survive in the world and the occasional wedding. But etiquette is everywhere, in every subculture, from the unsavory to the hoity-toity. Seasoned symphony-goers know just when to applaud. Social pot smokers know how to share.

Graffiti artists can be exceptionally polite. Their code of respect means a piece of illegal artwork in the Krog Street Tunnel can be sacred and untouched — except to those who don't know the rules, or openly flaunt them.

"Regardless what group we belong to, whether it's a way-out fringe thing or a mainstream-y thing, the group has a way of doing things," says Peter Post, a director of The Emily Post Institute in Vermont and a great grandson of the manners maven. "We all want to belong."

Wandering unprepared into an unfamiliar subculture can be one big faux pas, unless you're in the know.

For this, well, you're welcome.

Knitters are usually kind, well-mannered people, but there is this one thing, a little habit that will raise a few too many eyebrows and endear an inexperienced knitter to no one: interrupting a knitter as he or she counts. Whether numbering out loud, mouthing words or concentrating unusually hard on one swatch of yarn, "knitters know just not to talk to them. It's very obvious," says Kim Nickels, owner of Knitch yarn store in Virginia-Highland.

Comic lovers know not to eat anything greasy, or anything at all, if they're handling glossy pages or sometimes old, delicate paper and ink. If a book leave its protective plastic sleeve, it ought to be in the hands of a store employee, or at least safe from tape that might tear the pages. Don't fold corners to mark pages, and for the love of Batman, please don't roll the pages or break the binding, if there is one. "That's why you'll see certain collectors hesitate to hand just anybody a book. You're afraid that person doesn't really understand, is going to thumb through it like any old magazine," says Thomas Key, a sales associate at Oxford Comics.

Nobody really wanted to talk about the etiquette of pot smoking — and nobody we know has experience with that, right? — but even a quick Google search shows there's a lot of it. Don't smoke alone when there's a group. Share. "Puff, puff, pass." Don't "bogart" a bowl. Whoever rolls a joint gets the first drag. If someone is too clumsy, or let's just say it, incapacitated, to operate a lighter, relinquish it without argument. And how about this one: don't lie about how much you've smoked, if anybody asks.

There's no Miss Manners at PerlMonks.org, an online community of more than 50,000 programmers, but its techno-etiquette tips are aggregated on a tutorial called: "How do I post a question effectively?" The answer: proper formatting, complete information and at least a cursory effort to "RTFM." (With a little imagination, the last one is a suggestion to read the manual before asking questions. Profanity, the site says, should be avoided.) The forum's etiquette has been developing since the site began in late 1999, creator Tim Vroom says. It keeps code clean, and eliminates what's just plain annoying: "Please do not use IM-style abbreviations, such as u (you), r (are), THX (thanks), coz (because), ne (any), etc." the site says. "'1337 5pE4k' is completely unacceptable at PerlMonks (unless you're trying to make some kind of ironic point)."

Hockey fighting

The toughest guy on a hockey team might challenge the most skilled player on the rival team, but if he's got any manners, he'll wait for the rival team's tough guy to step in. Once a hockey fight begins in earnest, there's no eye-gouging, no hair-pulling. The best fights are gloves-off, helmets off, to save an opponent's knuckles. It's more about intimidation than pain; penalties are to be expected, either way. "You do want to hurt a guy when you fight him, but you don't want to end his career or maim him," says Scott Pearson, a former Toronto Maple Leaf who was in more than 50 fights in his career, and now works for a healthcare consulting company in Alpharetta. "It's your job and the role you play, what you're expected to do. Being friendly afterward is OK."