People Like Ourselves

The men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephramite? If he said Nay,

In 1940, famous George Orwell accepted as a fact that England was ''the most class-ridden society under the sun.'' i The traditional class distinctions have been blurred since the egalitarian revolution of the 60s, what has gone is at least ''the will to erect, maintain and police such distinctions.'' ii However, today England still is a highly class-conscious culture and people seem to have very sensitive antennas to localise their fellow Englishmen's exact position on the social map. This essay is supposed to examine how these ''on-board class- radar systems'' work, that means by which criteria social class is distinguished in today's English society. iii The first aspects which intuitionally might come into one's mind are occupation, income and wealth. In fact, class models preferred by market research experts are mainly based on occupation. Having a university degree is generally interpreted as an indicator for upper-middle and middle-middle class membership. One of the great distinctions between the middle and the working classes used to be that the latter work with his hands. But in times of industrial automation, the clear division between ''white-collar'' and ''blue-collar'' jobs has been fading. While the upper class has always despised the middle-classes for their preoccupation with money, to the working class ''the most important criterion of middle-class membership is [...] owning a small business or being self-employed.'' iv Actually the term 'middle-class' is identified with a rather hetergeneous group, both the head manager of an international trust company and the little shopkeeper would affiliate themselves to the middle-classes. Apart from these obvious differences they are regarded as sharing the same Puritan work ethic, the unshakable believe in industriousness, striving, education and individual career: ''Work to keep sin at bay, feel guilty if you slack. Shame is a bourgeois notion.'' v For centuries, the group at the top of the social ladder had been identified with being the wealthiest group. This has changed since the industrial revolution when the financial dominance of the aristocracy was broken by bourgeois entrepreneurs. Today, impoverished members of the upper class have to rely on selling inherited valuables and works of art and showing the public over their estates to stay alive, while CEOs, industrials, entertainers and athletes are earning incredible salaries. Members of the upper- working class might earn nearly the same or in best cases even more than a newly qualified doctor, barrister or most parts of the intelligentsia. In fact, the middle classes ''are having

increasingly difficulty making ends meet. [...] they rather than the working classes became the chief candidates for the pawnbroker, bringing in watches, wedding rings, golf clubs, and binoculars.'' vi Thus, wealth and real income cannot be seen as the sole basis of perceived social class. The most striking example therefor migth be the group of the nouveau riches, who of working-class origin managed to have made colossal amounts of money in business or entertainment: ''The upper-classes call him by his Christian name and appreciate his salty humour, but don't invite him to their houses.'' vii After all, since aristocrats used to frown upon making a living from trade, the English in general appear to have a distrust in wealth. viii Furthermore, the mode of consumption has become more important than the mode of production and actual income in recent decades. Occupation and wealth surely contribute to social classification, but the English seem to judge class in more complex and subtle ways, so other, rather non-economic aspects are to be considered in the following. Language and manners of speech used to function as infallible indicators to differentiate the upper class from the rest of the society. ''It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him,'' as George Bernard Show put it in the preface of his Pygmalion. ix In the early 1950s, the Professor of Linguistics Alan S C Ross argued that members of the English aristocracy were in that time distinguished by little more than their speech patterns: ''Today a member of the upper class is, for instance not necessarily better educated, cleaner or richer than someone not of his class.'' x Again the social revolution of the 60s has flattened out most of the contrasts. While the linguistic code of the upper and upper-middle classes used to be the standard, today's trend-setters striving for street credibility have – in a sort of inverse snobbery – adopted the speech of the working-class: ''By talking alike, in classless accents, mockney, Estuary English, dj mid-Atlantic, and in other hybrid voices which are designed to conceal class origins and demonstrate solidarity with our fellow citizens.'' xi However, one's way of speaking remains a crucial indicator in sniffing out the dialogue partner's social background. And of course, the classes at the upper end of the social ladder consider their speech patterns as the correct, elaborate code. Deviations are regarded as 'accents' and these are generally identified with working class membership. xii As far as speech and affiliation with class is concerned, two aspects are seen to be important: Pronunciation and terminology.

Regarding pronuciation the term shibboleth has kept its genuine biblical meaning;

class distinctions still seem to be sound distinctions. Since the upper-middle class cannot be the topmost class in society, they resort to being the most cultured class. Consequently, they attach great importance to speaking with a cultivated Received Pronunciation accent.

In contrast, both the aristocracy and the working class tend to swallow certain sounds. For instance, as both the upper-middle class member and every foreign language learner knows the correct RP pronunciation is ''handkerchief'', upper class members probably might swallow the vowels and pronounce it like 'hndkrchf', while the dropping of consonants and glottal stops in greater quantities – '`an`kercheef' – are regarded as the linguistic hallmarks of the working class. xiii Furthermore, we have to consider the words one choses in an act of communication. Again Professor Ross coined the terms U-Speaker and Non-U-Speaker, depending on the speaker's preference for certain words. Over the years some shibboleths have lost their potential in displaying the social affiliation and since language is very fluid the binary division in U-words (used only by the upper-class) and Non-U-words (used by both the middle-class and the working-class) must be regarded as oversimplifying the subject. xiv But the principle remained. Kate Fox has revisited Nancy Mitford's table and identified ''Seven Deadly Sins'', that means words that English upper and upper-middle classes still interpret as infallible signals for lower class membership. For instance calling the 'lavatory' or 'loo' a 'toilet' or the 'table-napkin' a 'serviette', unmistakably reveals the speakers as lower-middle or below. According to Fox, the most accurate linguistic class indicator is the use of 'pardon' instead of 'sorry'. Thus, lower-middle class suburbs are referred to as Pardonia and for some upper and upper-middle class people ''using such an unmistakably lower-class term is worse than swearing.'' xv Concerning the choice of words some patterns seem to exist. Non-U-Speakers probably try to show off that they are familiar with foreign languages, preferring a fancy word of French origin to a plain English one. Middle-class and particularly upper-middle class members tend to use careful and political correct euphemisms and circumlocutions. While working class members usually do not have an issue with calling themselves 'working class', middle-class people would prefer terms like 'low-income groups', ' the less privileged' or 'the man on the street'. The upper class and the working class share at least the disklike for middle-class euphemisms. An aristocrat would be unconcerned about whether calling the smallest room in the house 'lavatory' or 'little girls' room', if they can go and ''point Percy at the porcelain.'' xvi With the above-mentioned general tolerance in speech has come a similar tendency in matters of dress. Since everyone under the age of sixty seems to wear blue jeans nowadays, it has become much harder to tell a person's class by the way she or he dresses. Particularly with regard to younger people, class markers seem to have entirely faded since the 'working-class-is-beautiful-revolution' of the 1960s. Today ''sartorial differences between middle-class youth and working-class 'yoof' are generally a matter of degree.'' xvii