Irony and Understatement Rules

The English predilection for irony, particularly our use of the understatement, only makes matters worse. Not only do we fail to exhibit the required degree of enthusiasm for our work or products, but we then compound the error by making remarks such as ‘Well, it’s not bad, considering’ or ‘You could do a lot worse,’ when trying to convince someone that our loft conversions or legal acumen or whatever are really the best that money can buy. Then we have a tendency to say ‘Well, I expect we’ll manage somehow,’ when we mean ‘Yes, certainly, no trouble’ and ‘That would be quite helpful,’ when we mean ‘For Christ’s sake, that should have been done yesterday!’; and ‘We seem to have a bit of a problem,’ when there has been a complete and utter disaster. (Another typically English response to, say, a catastrophic meeting where a million-pound deal has fallen through, would be ‘That all went rather well, don’t you think?’)

It takes foreign colleagues and clients a while to realise that when the English say ‘Oh really? How interesting!’ they might well mean ‘I don’t believe a word of it, you lying toad’. Or they might not. They might just mean ‘I’m bored and not really listening but trying to be polite’. Or they might be genuinely surprised and truly interested. You’ll never know. There is no way of telling: even the English themselves, who have a pretty good ‘sixth sense’ for detecting irony, cannot always be entirely sure. And this is the problem with the English irony-habit: we do sometimes say what we mean, but our constant use of irony is a bit like crying wolf – when there really is a wolf, when we do mean what we say, our audience is not surprisingly somewhat sceptical, or, if foreign, completely bewildered. The English are accustomed to this perpetual state of uncertainty, and as Priestley says, this hazy atmosphere in which ‘very rarely is everything clear-cut’ is certainly favourable to humour. In the world of work and business, however, even one of my most staunchly English informants admitted that ‘a bit more clarity might be helpful,’ although, he added, ‘we seem to muddle through well enough.’

An Indian immigrant, who has been valiantly trying to do business with the English for many years, told me that it took him a while to get to grips with English irony because although irony is universal ‘the English do not do irony the way Indians do it. We do it in a very heavy-handed way, with lots of winks and raised eyebrows and exaggerated tones to let you know we are being ironic. We might say “Oh yes, do you think so?” when we don’t believe someone, but we will do it with all the signals blazing. In fact, most other nations do this – give lots of clues, I mean – in my experience. Only the English do irony with a completely straight face. I do realise that is how it should be done, Kate, and yes it is much more amusing – Indian irony is not funny at all, really, with all those big neon signs saying “irony” – but you know the English can be a bit too bloody subtle for their own good sometimes’.

Most English workers, however, far from being concerned about the difficulties it poses for foreigners, are immensely proud of our sense of humour. In a survey conducted by a social psychologist friend of mine, Peter Collett, experienced Euro-hopping British businessmen perceived the business climate in this country to be more light-hearted and humorous than in any other country in Europe, except Ireland (it was not entirely clear whether we felt the Irish had a better sense of humour, or just that we found them funnier). Only the Spanish even came close to matching us, and the poor Germans got the lowest humour-score of all, reflecting the popular stereotype in this country that Germans have absolutely no sense of humour – or perhaps that we find them difficult to laugh at, which is not quite the same thing.