- •Kate Fox
- •Watching the English
- •Watching the english
- •Contents
- •Introduction – Anthropology at Home
- •Introductionanthropology at home
- •The ‘grammar’ of englishness
- •Participant observation and its discontents
- •The Good, the Bad and the Uncomfortable
- •My Family and other Lab Rats
- •Trust me, I’m an anthropologist
- •Boring but important
- •The nature of culture
- •Rule making
- •Globalization and tribalization
- •Class and race
- •Britishness and englishness
- •Stereotypes and cultural genomics
- •Part one conversation codes the weather
- •The rules of english weather-speak The Reciprocity Rule
- •The Context Rule
- •The Agreement Rule
- •Exceptions to the Agreement Rule
- •The Weather Hierarchy Rule
- •Snow and the Moderation Rule
- •The Weather-as-family Rule
- •The Shipping Forecast Ritual
- •Weather-speak rules and englishness
- •Grooming-talk
- •Humour rules
- •The importance of not being earnest rule
- •The ‘Oh, Come Off It!’ Rule
- •Irony rules
- •The Understatement Rule
- •The Self-deprecation Rule
- •Humour and comedy
- •Humour and class
- •Humour rules and englishness
- •Linguistic class codes
- •The vowels vs consonants rule
- •Terminology rules – u and non-u revisited
- •The Seven Deadly Sins
- •Serviette
- •‘Smart’ and ‘Common’ Rules
- •Class-denial Rules
- •Linguistic class codes and englishness
- •Emerging talk-rules: the mobile phone
- •Pub-talk
- •The rules of english pub-talk The Sociability Rule
- •The Invisible-queue Rule
- •The Pantomime Rule
- •Pub-talk rules and englishness
- •Part two behaviour codes home rules
- •The moat-and-drawbridge rule
- •Nestbuilding rules
- •The Territorial-marking Rule
- •Class rules
- •Matching and Newness Rules
- •The Brag-wall Rule
- •The Satellite-dish Rule
- •The Eccentricity Clause
- •House-talk rules
- •The ‘Nightmare’ Rule
- •Money-talk Rules
- •Improvement-talk Rules
- •Class Variations in House-talk Rules
- •The Awful Estate-agent Rule
- •Garden rules
- •‘Your Own Front Garden, You May Not Enjoy’
- •The Front-garden Social-availability Rule (and ‘Sponge’ Methodology)
- •The Counter-culture Garden-sofa Exception
- •The Back-garden Formula
- •The nspcg Rule
- •Class Rules
- •Class Indicators and the Eccentricity Clause
- •The Ironic-gnome Rule
- •Home rules and englishness
- •Rules of the road
- •Public transport rules
- •The Denial Rule
- •Exceptions to the Denial Rule
- •The Politeness Exception
- •The Information Exception
- •The Moan Exception
- •The Mobile-phone Ostrich Exception
- •Courtesy rules
- •‘Negative-politeness’ Rules
- •Bumping Experiments and the Reflex-apology Rule
- •Rules of Ps and Qs
- •Taxi Exceptions to the Denial Rule – the Role of Mirrors
- •Queuing rules
- •The Indirectness Rule
- •The Paranoid Pantomime Rule
- •Body-language and Muttering Rules
- •The Unseen Choreographer Rule
- •The Fair-play Rule
- •The Drama of Queuing
- •A Very English Tribute
- •Car rules
- •The Status-indifference Rule
- •Class Rules The ‘Mondeo Test’
- •The ‘Mercedes-Test’
- •Car-care and Decoration Rules
- •The Mobile Castle Rule
- •The Ostrich Rule
- •Road-rage and the ‘Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used To Be’ Rule
- •Courtesy Rules
- •Fair-play Rules
- •Road rules and englishness
- •Work to rule
- •The muddle rules
- •Humour rules
- •The Importance of Not Being Earnest Rule
- •Irony and Understatement Rules
- •The modesty rule – and the ‘bumpex’ school of advertising
- •The polite procrastination rule
- •The money-talk taboo
- •Variations and the Yorkshire Inversion
- •Class and the Vestigial Trade-prejudice Rule
- •The moderation rule
- •Safe, Sensible, Bourgeois Aspirations
- •Future Stability More Important Than Fun
- •Industrious, Diligent and Cautious with Money
- •The Dangers of Excessive Moderation
- •The fair-play rule
- •Moaning rules
- •The Monday-morning Moan
- •Dress codes and englishness
- •Food rules
- •The ambivalence rule
- •Anti-earnestness and obscenity rules
- •Tv-dinner rules
- •The novelty rule
- •Moaning and complaining rules
- •The Silent Complaint
- •The Apologetic Complaint
- •The Loud, Aggressive, Obnoxious Complaint
- •The ‘Typical!’ Rule Revisited
- •Culinary class codes
- •The Health-correctness Indicator
- •Timing and Linguistic Indicators Dinner/Tea/Supper Rules
- •Lunch/Dinner Rules
- •Breakfast Rules – and Tea Beliefs
- •Table Manners and ‘Material Culture’ Indicators Table Manners
- •‘Material Culture’ Indicators
- •The Knife-holding Rule
- •Forks and the Pea-eating Rules
- •The ‘Small/Slow Is Beautiful’ Principle
- •Napkin Rings and Other Horrors
- •Port-passing Rules
- •The meaning of chips
- •Chips, Patriotism and English Empiricism
- •Chip-sharing Rules and Sociability
- •Food rules and englishness
- •Rules of sex
‘Smart’ and ‘Common’ Rules
The ‘seven deadly sins’ are the most obvious and reliable class indicators, but a number of other terms will also register on our highly sensitive class-radar devices. If you want to ‘talk posh’, you will have to stop using the term ‘posh’, for a start: the correct upper-class word is ‘smart’. In upper-middle and upper-class circles, ‘posh’ can only be used ironically, in a jokey tone of voice to show that you know it is a low-class word.
The opposite of ‘smart’ is what everyone from the middle-middles upwards calls ‘common’ – a snobbish euphemism for ‘working class’. But beware: using this term too often is a sure sign of middle-middle class-anxiety. Calling things and people ‘common’ all the time is protesting too much, trying too hard to distance yourself from the lower classes. Only the insecure wear their snobbery on their sleeve in this way. ‘Naff’ is a better option, as it is a more ambiguous term, which can mean the same as ‘common’, but can also just mean ‘tacky’ or ‘in bad taste’. It has become a generic, all-purpose expression of disapproval/dislike: teenagers often use ‘naff’ more or less interchangeably with ‘uncool’ and ‘mainstream’, their favourite dire insults.
If they are ‘common’, these young people will call their parents Mum and Dad; ‘smart’ children say Mummy and Daddy (some used to say Ma and Pa, but these are now seen as very old-fashioned). When talking about their parents, common children refer to them as ‘my Mum’ and ‘my Dad’ (or ‘me Mam’ and ‘me Dad’), while smart children say ‘my mother’ and ‘my father’. These are not infallible indicators, as some higher-class children now say Mum and Dad, and some very young working-class children might say Mummy and Daddy; but if the child is over the age of ten, maybe twelve to be safe, still calling his or her mother Mummy is a fairly reliable higher-class indicator. Grown-ups who still say Mummy and Daddy are almost certainly upper-middle or above.
Mothers who are called Mum carry a ‘handbag’; mothers called Mummy just call it a ‘bag’. Mums wear ‘perfume’; Mummies call it ‘scent’. Parents called Mum and Dad go ‘horseracing’; smart Mummies and Daddies call it ‘racing’. Common people go to a ‘do’; middle-middles might call it a ‘function’; smart people just call it a party. ‘Refreshments’ are served at middle-class ‘functions’; the higher echelons’ parties just have food and drink. Lower- and middle-middles eat their food in ‘portions’; upper-middles and above have ‘helpings’. Common people have a ‘starter’; smart people have a ‘first course’ (although this one is rather less reliable).
Lower- and middle-middles talk about their ‘home’ or ‘property’; upper-middles and above say ‘house’. Common people’s homes have ‘patios’; smart people’s houses have ‘terraces’. Working-class people say ‘indoors’ when they mean ‘at home’ (as in ‘I left it indoors’ and ‘’er indoors’ meaning ‘my wife’). This is by no means an exhaustive list: class pervades every aspect of English life, and you will find yet more verbal class indicators in almost every chapter of this book – as well as dozens of non-verbal class signals.