Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior Revised and UpdatedUpdated, with new research and over 100 revisions Ten years later, they're still talking about the weather! Kate Fox, the social anthropologist who put the quirks and hidden conditions of the English under a microscope, is back with more biting insights about the nature of Englishness. This updated and revised edition of Watching the English - which over the last decade has become the unofficial guidebook to the English national character - features new and fresh insights on the unwritten rules and foibles of "squaddies," bikers, horse-riders, and more. Fox revisits a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and bizarre codes of behavior. She demystifies the peculiar cultural rules that baffle us: the rules of weather-speak. The ironic-gnome rule. The reflex apology rule. The paranoid pantomime rule. Class anxiety tests. The roots of English self-mockery and many more. An international bestseller, Watching the English is a biting, affectionate, insightful and often hilarious look at the English and their society. |
Contents
Humour Rules | |
The Mobile Phone | |
Racing Talk | |
Home Rules | |
Rules of the Road | |
Work to Rule | |
Rules of Play | |
Dress Codes | |
Food Rules | |
Rules of | |
Rites of Passage | |
Defining Englishness | |
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Common terms and phrases
actually alcohol American asked awkward bar counter behaviour boasting celebration cent chav Christmas classconsciousness codes complain conversation courtesy defining characteristics dress drink Earnest rule Eeyorish embarrassing England English humour English males English patients etiquette example Facebook fair play feel female flirting friends garden George Mikes gossip humour rules hypocrisy important inhibitions involved irony Jeremy Paxman joke least less liminal look lowerclass lowermiddle mean middleclass middlemiddle moaning mobile phone modesty rule Mondeo normal observation obsession one’s particularly perhaps polite polite egalitarianism pubtalk question queue queuejumping queuing races regarded rites of passage ritual rules of Englishness selfdeprecation sense Shipping Forecast social class social disease social inhibitions someone sorry sort subculture taboo talk teenage television tend things typically English unwritten rules upper upperclass uppermiddle usually weather weatherspeak workingclass