tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post3175224963303485853..comments2024-03-16T00:21:43.240+00:00Comments on Separated by a Common Language: social classeslynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-36275525588009026422021-05-07T14:41:23.029+01:002021-05-07T14:41:23.029+01:00They don't wear tweed jackets and brogues eith...They don't wear tweed jackets and brogues either.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-3462950865243585322020-08-05T17:25:04.569+01:002020-08-05T17:25:04.569+01:00BrE. I see that the previous commenter posted in J...BrE. I see that the previous commenter posted in January this year (2020). Since then, many of us have spent part of a series of Thursday evenings applauding key workers. For me at least, that included the guys that emptied my bins, and the many mary people who kept supermarkets to corner shops open, etc. For once, class considerations seem to have taken a back seat. It will be interesting to see if it lasts.Shy-replyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01891566073375322808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-84541874875209773662020-01-07T13:30:38.410+00:002020-01-07T13:30:38.410+00:00We (UK) have some friends who live in our area. I ...We (UK) have some friends who live in our area. I would say the parents are working class but the children are middle class. This is because the children grew up with middle class friends, going to middle class school so picked up a lot of the culture.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-11187615358776255882017-07-14T05:01:34.416+01:002017-07-14T05:01:34.416+01:00Something I wonder about is if a family like, say,...Something I wonder about is if a family like, say, the Kardashians were British, what kind of accent would they speak with? I've heard that accent and social class are closely intertwined in Britain, so that's why I decided to post this comment here. My best guess would be that they would speak with strong Liverpool, Newcastle or Essex accents. The British women I've seen who were most like the Kardashians have had one of those accents. Rick Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06798776120978882874noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-86719521819859463932017-03-22T00:27:13.348+00:002017-03-22T00:27:13.348+00:00On the flimsy basis of knowing just a little of tw...<em>On the flimsy basis of knowing just a little of two families' educational histories and tastes in consumer goods, all too many of us would make assumptions about the kind of work the husband does, the part of town they live in, whether or not they own their home, their ambitions for their children and the sort of school the children attend, the sort of newspaper they read, the television programmes they prefer, the radio channel they listen to, the sort of holidays they go on and so on.</em><br /><br />Hmm...interesting. I think my aunt and uncle's family probably does differ from my family in some of those other ways too now that you mention it. However, I don't know if I would <em>assume</em> that a new person I met who had different spending habits than me also would differ from me in those other ways. <br /><br /><em>Britain has a huge variety of regional accents — much greater than America, despite being geographically so much tinier.</em><br /><br />Yes, I've noticed that. Even England by itself has many different accents in an area smaller than my home state. It's hard for us to believe that all of those accents come from the same country, because to our ears they're too different from each other for that to be possible. We do have some regional and ethnic accents here in Anglophone North America too though. However, all of them have some basic things in common with each other, so you can tell they all belong to the same family. The differences between some of them are subtle and hard for outsiders (and even many insiders) to hear.Mark Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08432465232946983705noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-65256633954785387342017-03-21T01:05:28.806+00:002017-03-21T01:05:28.806+00:00I don't deserve that long of a response. You&...I don't deserve that long of a response. You're too kind. Forget about the time machine comment :)Mark Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08432465232946983705noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-43364326263436852522017-03-19T13:30:40.913+00:002017-03-19T13:30:40.913+00:00Mark, the difference you describe between your par...Mark, the difference you describe between your parents and your uncle and aunt is a clear parallel to <b>one</b> aspect of class-consciousness in Britain. Where I suspect we Brits differ is that we conflate one aspect of a class stereotype with the rest of the package.<br /><br />On the flimsy basis of knowing just a little of two families' educational histories and tastes in consumer goods, all too many of us would make assumptions about the kind of work the husband does, the part of town they live in, whether or not they own their home, their ambitions for their children and the sort of school the children attend, the sort of newspaper they read, the television programmes they prefer, the radio channel they listen to, the sort of holidays they go on and so on. Of course when challenged we don't maintain that every family conforms in each and every one of these choices to a middle class or working class stereotype. Nevertheless, the stereotypes affect our lazier thinking much of the time.<br /><br />Of interest to this blog, if we recognise (rightly or wrongly) stereotypical class <b>taste</b>, we assume that the people will <b>speak</b> in a class-defined way. Conversely, when we think we recognise certain features of speech, we assume that we know the class of the speaker.<br /><br />Accent is a common marker — although not as powerful as when Shaw wrote <i>'it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making another Englishman despise or hate him him'</i>. Britain has a huge variety of regional accents — much greater than America, despite being geographically so much tinier. But the more a speaker climbs the social ladder, the more they eliminate the narrowly local features of their pronunciation. The target accent was given the name <i>Received Pronunciation</i> because it was acceptable in high-class society. When I was a boy, people aimed to actually reach the target. If you went to university, for example, you changed changed your accent to RP (assuming that you hadn't done so already). Actually, this was already beginning to change, and it changed an awful lot more after the sixties. But still there's a target: a sort of <b>near-RP</b> retaining a few features of your regional accent. So there's still a clear distinction between the very local accents retained by working-class speakers and the watered-down or 'posh' accents of the middle class.<br /><br />PS<br />What was the point of your <i>'time machine'</i> comment? The idea of Trump being 'upper class' by British standards is just as ridiculous as it alway was.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-34417331743670839892017-03-18T04:11:38.956+00:002017-03-18T04:11:38.956+00:00Hi. I'm gonna respond to some really old comm...Hi. I'm gonna respond to some really old comments here.<br /><br />I (American) think I see what Fnarf was getting at in his first comment. To use an extreme example, is Larry the Cable Guy upper class? I'm sure he's made more money than most of us ever will, but I'm also sure he'd be the first to admit he's not a classy guy. But for some reason, it feels weird to me to refer to that as a class <em>system</em>. It's just grouping people based on their personalities. <br /><br />So, is the British class system similar to what Fnarf described in his first comment? If so, I think I'm <em>finally</em> starting to understand it as an American. I always thought it was about money when I would read British books or watched British TV shows. Upper class British people are the people who could be said to have the most class of anyone or they could be called very classy. Right? Or am I wrong? Lower (or working) class British people would be more likely than higher class people to do dirty, smelly, physically demanding or dangerous jobs. But those jobs could very well pay better than the jobs that people from higher classes than them do. Right? Do a lot of people from higher classes in Britain think they're better or smarter than people from lower classes there? Is talking about social class maybe sometimes a PC way of talking about (perceived) intelligence differences in the UK? That's another thing I'm curious about. I don't really expect anyone to answer my questions, so I'm not sure why I asked them. I also apologize if any of the above seems incredibly obvious to Brits. Class really isn't something we think about or talk about much in America, so reading this blog post has been a huge eye-opener for me. Thank you.<br /><br />I grew up in a small town in the heartland of America. An aunt and an uncle (and their children) lived in the same town I did. Looking back, I honestly think my family thought we were better and smarter than they were in some ways. We still loved them though; don't get me wrong. But I don't think we thought we were better and smarter than them because of how much money my parents made. My dad was a teacher and my mom did a lot of different things, but nothing too lucrative. She was college-educated (unlike my aunt or uncle). She was an on and off substitute teacher when I got older. My uncle did house renovations, auto repair and later ironwork. That aunt and uncle might have made more money than my parents. As a kid it always seemed to me like they did. They always had flashy new cars, flashy new TVs, flashy new video game systems, flashy new trampolines, etc. They ate out at fast food restaurants all the time and seemed to go to the movies all the time. But I think my parents kind of prided themselves on being more frugal, more tasteful and less ostentatious than my aunt and uncle. So I guess some people might see that as a class difference between my family and my aunt and uncle's family. But I never thought it was possible to look at it that way until I read this post. <br /><br /><strong>Harry Campbell</strong><br /><em>(The idea of Donald Trump as upper-class is hilarious!)</em><br /><br />Oh boy...I really wish I had a time machine right now...Mark Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08432465232946983705noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-66090849962722783632017-01-23T21:30:56.352+00:002017-01-23T21:30:56.352+00:00HAMLET
The King doth wake tonight and takes his r...HAMLET<br /><br />The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,<br />Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels.<br />And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down<br />The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out<br />The triumph of his pledge.<br /><br />HORATIO<br /><br />.....................................Is it a custom?<br /><br />HAMLET<br /><br />Ay, marry, is't.<br />But to my mind, though I am native here<br />And to the manner born, it is a custom<br />More honoured in the breach than the observance.<br />David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-20568817327391262452017-01-23T15:31:19.521+00:002017-01-23T15:31:19.521+00:00OK, someone further down the comments has answered...OK, someone further down the comments has answered this. Please delete both my earlier one and this comment, Lynne.KeithDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10451059429340892054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-20293558954528418582017-01-23T15:25:06.880+00:002017-01-23T15:25:06.880+00:00The pun is in 'To the manor born'. The ori...The pun is in 'To the manor born'. The original is Shakespearean (or older).KeithDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10451059429340892054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-69783203583984110112011-11-14T18:47:54.796+00:002011-11-14T18:47:54.796+00:00In Britain, America, and everywhere else, there ar...In Britain, America, and everywhere else, there are two classes; Those who own the means of production and those who don't. That's it.black michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04232225925068310874noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-51591854449533315342010-11-18T01:08:31.238+00:002010-11-18T01:08:31.238+00:00This is indeed a "big, hairy topic", but...This is indeed a "big, hairy topic", but I get the impression it's much more straightforward in America. "Class" seems to be mainly about income, whereas in the UK it has nothing WHATSOEVER to do with income, it's about tastes, attitudes, lifestyle, education, accent, etc etc etc. Your average middle-class person might have a higher income than a working-class person but that's not what makes them middle-class, it's a reflection of their education or sense of entitlement or connections or whatever. There are of course some very rich working-class people and some very poor aristocrats. It's how they earn and spend the money that tells us about their social class. And incidentally, yes, it may be unusual but it is perfectly possible to be a middle-class plumber, say if you "downshifted" into it after leaving a job in the City, or came from a middle-class home but dropped out of school early. And occasionally people rise to exalted heights in the establishment without losing any of their working-class-ness, like the deputy Prime Minister of the last government. <br /><br />I'm sorry if the above seems obvious to Brits, but it can result in some strange transatlantic incongruities. I've heard of a car being described in AmE as middle-class. The BrE for this would be "mid-range", I think. It's hard to make sense of the phrase "middle-class car" in BrE, but it would have to be one that exuded middle-class attitudes in some way, whatever that meant in practice. Maybe a sensible Volvo estate rather than a souped-up mass-market sports car with a gigantic sund system? Someone at a car hire firm or dealership would never describe a car as middle-class, that would be (cheeky) sociological comment rather than a question about boot size or engine capacity. "Now sir, would you like a family-values model, a nice neo-con-veyance perhaps, or do you prefer something more anti-establishment?"<br /><br />Unfortunately, there is much incomprehension, suspicion and even emnity between classes in the UK. I don't know why in these infinitely socially freer times Britain is still so class-ridden compared to other places, but it's certainly not what the political theorists meant by class struggle.<br /><br />(The idea of Donald Trump as upper-class is hilarious!)Harry Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01675794936870568336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-2587936813980389402008-11-03T17:39:00.000+00:002008-11-03T17:39:00.000+00:00Speaking of UK class structure:Apart from upper-mi...Speaking of UK class structure:<BR/><BR/>Apart from upper-middle, middle-middle, and lower-middle, there's also the type I call the aspirational or striving middle class -- desperate to climb the social scale, and generally making asses of themselves in the process.<BR/><BR/>Upper-class and working-class people tend to get along rather well, both being fairly forthright and down-to-earth. Both despise the middle class for its pretentiousness.<BR/><BR/>Or, as the previous Duke of Buccleuch once grumbled on seeing life peers rising every time a woman entered the room, "Dem'd upstarts, bob-bob-bobbing up and down like a bloody jack-in-the-box."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-80180610654909037152008-09-12T15:15:00.000+01:002008-09-12T15:15:00.000+01:00Lynne: there is an excellent book called Class by ...Lynne: there is an excellent book called Class by Paul Fussell that explains the subtle class system in America. Anyone who is interested in the topic should read it; it's both entertaining and dead-on accurate, and covers everything from language, dressing, habitation, and occupation.Marinahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16126413388068443306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-66598469040194365202008-05-28T14:29:00.000+01:002008-05-28T14:29:00.000+01:00Frans (1 May) mentioned the phrase 'to the manner ...Frans (1 May) mentioned the phrase 'to the manner born' as if it should have been 'to the manor born'. But the first version is the one used by Shakespeare to indicate - I think - natural talent: performing a task as if born to it. The latter version was a cute pun used as the title of a UK sitcom in which a member of the landed gentry was displaced from her ancestral home (the manor) by a nouveau riche businessman ... of course ultimately the posh lady and the rough diamond fell in love, married and lived together in the manor (to which she had been accustomed - another pun.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-5472748449026185402008-05-10T11:14:00.000+01:002008-05-10T11:14:00.000+01:00chg, since fnarf was not flattering to any particu...chg, since fnarf was not flattering to any particular class, I don't see that even implied flaming is called for here.lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-35504458579777803192008-05-10T08:13:00.000+01:002008-05-10T08:13:00.000+01:00Fnarf, I've got another name for the "sophisticate...Fnarf, I've got another name for the "sophisticate" class which, given your obvious disdain for other elements of society, I'm sure you count yourself a member of. However, I don't want to clutter up this otherwise lovely blog by calling you out on your gauche manners. <BR/><BR/>Suffice it to say that effete is not necessarily synonymous with class and, whatever your income level, someone failed to instill any true class within you.<BR/><BR/>As someone already noted, "working class" has begun to creep into liberal US political discussions. There is already a backlash from the other end of the spectrum claiming that designating a specific group as working class implies that anyone outside of that group is not working. I guess most Americans will sympathize with the latter view and the term will continue to be rare in everyday discourse.<BR/><BR/>Finally, I think coveralls is a regional term. I have never heard them referred to as anything but overalls.chghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08299359954137090528noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-80888295510361357272008-05-01T23:01:00.000+01:002008-05-01T23:01:00.000+01:00The (American) web comic Cat and Girl once posited...The (American) web comic <A HREF="http://www.catandgirl.com" REL="nofollow">Cat and Girl</A> once posited the definition that class is determined by how much money one's grandparents had.<BR/><BR/>As for "respectable/rough working class" in Britain, I got the impression that "working class" is generally respectable (unpretentious salt-of-the-Earth types), whereas the "rough" working class (characterised by things like teenage pregnancy, being on benefits, proneness to violence and a fondness for pit bulls) are referred to not as "working class" but"underclass"Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04504908587114395374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-90445933918503340242008-05-01T17:22:00.000+01:002008-05-01T17:22:00.000+01:00Might it be a pun?Might it be a pun?lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-45019550876541410792008-05-01T16:06:00.000+01:002008-05-01T16:06:00.000+01:00There's a nice little mistake in the IHT article y...There's a nice little mistake in the IHT article you link - "most people not to the manner born". So I'm guessing the author isn't an upperclass Brit, then.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-68368910162296789242008-05-01T11:01:00.000+01:002008-05-01T11:01:00.000+01:00TheophileEscargot over at the Metafilter thread th...TheophileEscargot over at the Metafilter thread that links to this post makes an important <A HREF="http://www.metafilter.com/71287/Class-distinctions-in-the-US-and-UK#2099213" REL="nofollow">point </A> about teeth as a class marker in the US. This is something I think even lots of people from the US don’t realise consciously, but they still behave according to it—there are few markers of poverty more immediate there than being gap- or buck-toothed, and that’s less the case in the other countries I’ve lived in.Aidan Kehoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11233939324834414466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-45787441402506596122008-05-01T08:21:00.000+01:002008-05-01T08:21:00.000+01:00Social class analysis is a very bent academic fixa...Social class analysis is a very bent academic fixation, deconstructing anything and everything in order to conquer some wooly niche or other. And why not? The NY Social Register Association's submission form has added yacht-ownership as another mark of America's upperclass pedigree. How else could one judge the depth and permanency of a family? Or, has the Registry replace the family?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-18666021528046174792008-04-29T10:43:00.000+01:002008-04-29T10:43:00.000+01:00A classic example of how "middle class" means very...A classic example of how "middle class" means very different things in the US, from a recent Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone:<BR/><BR/>"The one obvious conclusion anyone making a demographic study of the Cornerstone Church population would come to would be that it's a solidly middle-class crowd. These are folks who are comfortable eating off paper plates and drinking out of gallon jugs of Country Time iced tea over noisy dinners with their kids."Ginger Yellowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06103410278129312943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-2226819956493146192008-04-17T19:24:00.000+01:002008-04-17T19:24:00.000+01:00Lovely to hear from you Peter...the Granovetter re...Lovely to hear from you Peter...the Granovetter reference is great, thanks!lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.com