El Paso, Texas

I've been surprised at how often people in grocery stores say

"excuse me" or some such thing.

It is as though there is an invisible fence around everyone which is

I guess about 3 feet away.  When they get within four feet, they say

"Sorry" or "Excuse me".

This seems strange to me.

I guess in ten years of living in Central Europe my experience was different....

This is consistent with research by the psycholinguist Aneta Pavlenko.

However, it is surprising to me, in a way.  Latin cultures touch more than

Anglo-Saxon....and most people in El Paso are Spanish-English bilinguals...