Humour rules

In other cultures, there is ‘a time and a place’ for humour; it is a special, separate kind of talk. In English

conversation, there is always an undercurrent of humour. We can barely manage to say ‘hello’ or comment on the

weather without somehow contriving to make a bit of a joke out of it, and most English conversations will involve

at least some degree of banter, teasing, irony, understatement, humorous self-deprecation, mockery or just

silliness. Humour is our ‘default mode’, if you like: we do not have to switch it on deliberately, and we cannot

switch it off. For the English, the rules of humour are the cultural equivalent of natural laws – we obey them

automatically, rather in the way that we obey the law of gravity.

THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT BEING EARNEST RULE

At the most basic level, an underlying rule in all English conversation is the proscription of ‘earnestness’. Although

we may not have a monopoly on humour, or even on irony, the English are probably more acutely sensitive than

any other nation to the distinction between ‘serious’ and ‘solemn’, between ‘sincerity’ and ‘earnestness’.

This distinction is crucial to any kind of understanding of Englishness. I cannot emphasize this strongly

enough: if you are not able to grasp these subtle but vital differences, you will never understand the English –

and even if you speak the language fluently, you will never feel or appear entirely at home in conversation with

the English. Your English may be impeccable, but your behavioural ‘grammar’ will be full of glaring errors.

Once you have become sufficiently sensitized to these distinctions, the Importance of Not Being Earnest rule

is really quite simple. Seriousness is acceptable, solemnity is prohibited. Sincerity is allowed, earnestness is

strictly forbidden. Pomposity and self-importance are outlawed. Serious matters can be spoken of seriously, but

one must never take oneself too seriously. The ability to laugh at ourselves, although it may be rooted in a form

of arrogance, is one of the more endearing characteristics of the English. (At least, I hope I am right about this:

if I have overestimated our ability to laugh at ourselves, this book will be rather unpopular.)

To take a deliberately extreme example, the kind of hand-on-heart, gushing earnestness and pompous, Biblethumping

solemnity favoured by almost all American politicians would never win a single vote in this country – we

watch these speeches on our news programmes with a kind of smugly detached amusement, wondering how the

cheering crowds can possibly be so credulous as to fall for this sort of nonsense. When we are not feeling smugly

amused, we are cringing with vicarious embarrassment: how can these politicians bring themselves to utter such

shamefully earnest platitudes, in such ludicrously solemn tones? We expect politicians to speak largely in

platitudes, of course – ours are no different in this respect – it is the earnestness that makes us wince. The

same goes for the gushy, tearful acceptance speeches of American actors at the Oscars and other awards

ceremonies, to which English television viewers across the country all respond with the same finger-down-throat

‘I’m going to be sick’ gesture. You will rarely see English Oscar-winners indulging in these heart-on-sleeve

displays – their speeches tend to be either short and dignified or self-deprecatingly humorous, and even so they

nearly always manage to look uncomfortable and embarrassed. Any English thespian who dares to break these

unwritten rules is ridiculed and dismissed as a ‘luvvie’.

And Americans, although among the easiest to scoff at, are by no means the only targets of our cynical

censure. The sentimental patriotism of leaders and the portentous earnestness of writers, artists, actors,

musicians, pundits and other public figures of all nations are treated with equal derision and disdain by the

English, who can spot the slightest hint of self-importance at twenty paces, even on a grainy television picture

and in a language we don’t understand.

The ‘Oh, Come Off It!’ Rule

The English ban on earnestness, and specifically on taking oneself too seriously, means that our own politicians

and other public figures have a particularly tough time. The sharp-eyed English public is even less tolerant of any

breaches of these rules on home ground, and even the smallest lapse – the tiniest sign that a speaker may be

overdoing the intensity and crossing the fine line from sincerity to earnestness – will be spotted and picked up on

immediately, with scornful cries of ‘Oh, come off it!’

And we are just as hard on each other, in ordinary everyday conversation, as we are on those in the public

eye. In fact, if a country or culture could be said to have a catchphrase, I would propose ‘Oh, come off it!’ as a

strong candidate for England’s national catchphrase. Jeremy Paxman’s candidate is ‘I know my rights’ – well, he

doesn’t actually use the term catchphrase, but he refers to this one frequently, and it is the only such phrase

that he includes in his personal list of defining characteristics of Englishness. I take his point, and ‘I know my

rights’ does beautifully encapsulate a peculiarly English brand of stubborn individualism and a strong sense of

justice. But I would maintain that the armchair cynicism of ‘Oh, come off it!’ is more truly representative of the

English psyche than the belligerent activism suggested by ‘I know my rights’. This may be why, as someone once

said, the English have satire instead of revolutions.

There have certainly been brave individuals who have campaigned for the rights and freedoms we now enjoy,

but most ordinary English people now rather take these for granted, and prefer sniping, pinpricking and grumbling

from the sidelines to any sort of active involvement in defending or maintaining them. Many cannot even be

bothered to vote in national elections, although the pollsters and pundits cannot seem to agree on whether our

shamefully low turnout is due to cynicism or apathy – or, the most likely answer, a bit of both. Most of those

who do vote, do so in much the same highly sceptical spirit, choosing the ‘best of a bad lot’ or the ‘lesser of two

evils’, rather than with any shining-eyed, fervent conviction that this or that party is really going to make the

world a better place. Such a suggestion would be greeted with the customary ‘Oh, come off it!’

Among the young and others susceptible to linguistic fads and fashions, the current response might be the

ironic ‘Yeah, right’ rather than ‘Oh, come off it!’ – but the principle is the same. Similarly, those who break the

Importance of Not Being Earnest rule are described in the latest slang as being ‘up themselves’, rather than the

more traditional ‘full of themselves’. By the time you read this, these may in turn have been superseded by new

expressions, but the underlying rules and values are deep-rooted, and will remain unchanged.