I think you’re missing one of the essential qualities of being British. Things should never be taken at face value. She’s exaggerating for comic effect. There aren’t millions of new home owners wielding pickaxes willy nilly, but there is a small army of them half assedly wielding old paint brushes.
Some of it probably is. Different cultures do have some different rules. But the consequences of transgressing them - most of them, at least - are not that severe.
It’s mostly people buying council houses (i.e. they were social housing tenants who then got the right to buy their property) who make more structural changes that are done to mark the property out as theirs rather than for practical reasons - adding a bay window or a British-style porch or whatever, which do add a little more space, but not enough for the effort.
So I should be approaching this book like I would a collection of essays by Alastair Cooke or Andy Rooney? I expect that kind of approach from a newspaper columnist, not someone claiming to be an actual scientist. I would expect Stephen Jay Gould, for example, to make it clear when he’s exaggerating for comic effect and when he’s reporting scientific observations.
Ah, but I would say the difference in those situations is that you would be expected to get to know the other person. There’s a difference between meeting someone at a party, wedding, or night out, when you’re presumably going to be talking to lots of people all in one place for a while, and simply starting up a conversation with someone in a pub, or elsewhere, for a few short minutes. As you say, at a social gathering, where the purpose is interaction, an introduction of some kind would be perfectly normal - probably with the information as to how you come to be at the gathering (“Oh, i’m so-and-so, i’m the bride’s cousin”) too.
By miles the most common thing that people who’ve recently bought a council house do first is to change the front door.
If Alistair Cooke was an anthropologist, he might very have written a similar book. It’s not a comedy, but it is a book for the masses, not a dry and dusty textbook. If you’re after something in a similar oeuvre, then try Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation which is a hard core textbook on evolutionary biology disguised as a series of Dear Penhtouse type columns.
Yes, definitely, but I didn’t think that counted as a major structural change.
(Responding to Revenant Threshold) I agree completely, but this seems to me to be exactly the opposite of what Fox is saying about English people. (It’s not hyperbole. Could it be sarcasm?)
I’d say that perhaps it’s not just a matter of hyperbole, but overgeneralisation. Fox seems to take some situations which, certainly, may well exist (in milder forms), and then building them up into a general picture of the state of British people - granted, to match certain stereotypes which probably have some milder basis in fact. It seems to me as though Fox has attempted to look at what we do unconsciously or as things which we accept as normal and don’t even think about, trying to avoid assumptions as far as actual actions goes, but with those assumptions still in place when it comes to talk about motivation and national character, so that the conclusions end up skewed despite the attempt to avoid that. Brits generally don’t attract attention noisily at the bar - therefore to do so is a huge faux pas - therefore Brits eschew noisiness as heresy, and there’s something dangerously unBritish about it in all social occasions - therefore Brits are reserved. There’s some truth in the premise and the final conclusion, which makes it look as though the whole process is truthful, but I don’t think it is.
I missed the structural part, sorry. Those other changes aren’t so common where I am, but they do get done sometimes. A lot of ex-council places where I am are four in a block large flats.
I’m not English, but Scotland isn’t that different (and I’ve set foot south of the border once or twice), and when I read Fox’s book it struck me quite a few times that she was micro-analysing things and then generalising way beyond applicability. I just didn’t get the impression that she was a particularly astute observer of her compatriots. I don’t know what kind of book she was aiming for, to be honest, it’s neither an anthropological tome nor an “amusing sideways look” at England.
Meh. Bill Bryson’s book was more entertaining in his bumbling fashion, and Paul Theroux’s was more astute, even if most of it was made probably made up.
<checks self> Yep, American. And I don’t do this at all. I will reply in kind if someone introduces themself to me, but I don’t approach people in this way at a social gathering. Usually at a wedding, one is asked, “bride or groom?” and the convo builds from there. The someone may say, “I’m the groom’s second cousin, but he’s marrying my ex-GF”, which would make everyone forget the hell about names and immediately go into “find out as much as we can without seeming to be nosy” (not an exclusive American trait). 
If you come up to me at a wake or 4th of July picnic and introduce yourself, I will do likewise (both of us do it in relation to the host of the event–I am not sure if that is singularly American), but mostly I just talk to people. To be brutally honest, if it’s a large gathering and I’m meeting a lot of new people, I won’t remember your name, anyway…
Again, direct opposite. If I am meeting people in a business situation or work situation, I tend to introduce myself first. Of course, I work in the service industry… “Hi, my name is Rigby and I’ll be your nurse today” and “May I help you? I’m Rigby, the librarian here”…
I’m really not trying to bust your chops here, but do you see how different 2 Americans approach this kind of thing? Brits are the same, I would imagine, as are the French, the Aussies, the Chinese etc.
(although that is not to say that there aren’t regional differences or national differences. The Japanese bow, for example. Or the European kiss–one cheek or two? etc)
The more I read this comment, the more wisdom I see in it.
I might be wrong, but I suspect when reading a book written by a good writer I would understand when the author was exaggerating for comic effect and when he or she meant to report genuine observations.
I think there’s an excluded middle here. I’m beginning to suspect that Fox has tried to do something but has done it badly, which is why I’m having a hard time interpreting her points.
Another comment that is sinking in with me.
Yes, I’m beginning to see this. I think there is something between the two that she could have done, but failed to do it. I can imagine a book in which Fox tackles this subject with humour and wit and in terms accessible to a lay reader, but doesn’t overgeneralize and end up confusing me.
Both Bryson and Theroux are much better writers. The difference is that Theroux is a much more artful liar. You can tell when Bryson’s making shit up. Theroux’s lies do tend to get to the heart of a matter without fundamentally misleading the reader. Bryson is, as you say, entertaining as a bull in a china shop.
The issue is that American society allows us the leeway to have our own styles. Neither pattern of behaviour is considered a social error. It seems that I am misled by Fox in the idea that that English society is more rigid.
(And I have studiously stuck to “English” instead of “British” because Fox herself insists that she doesn’t know enough about the non-English parts of Britain to write about them.)
…so… I don’t go to a lot of bars. In fact, to my recollection, I’ve only been to two of them. Still, my experience on both occasions seems relevant to the thread.
Both times, I’d go up to the bar and start making motions and sounds of vaious polite sorts to get the bartender’s attention. Both times the bartender seemed “rudely” to be passing me over for others. And both times the bartender finally came over to me at a certain point when, apparently, s/he was good and ready. My attempts to get her attention seemed to have nothing to do with anything. After reading this thread, I suspect that s/he, (just like a UK bartender) was keeping tabs on who arrived at the bar in what order and had just served me when my place in “line” came.
American bars–one in California, one in Texas.
Pretty sure if I’d started doing more to get the bartender’s attention, I’d have been considered rude.
(Also–no. Don’t talk to me on a subway. I’m not there to chat.
If you think you have something genuinely helpful to say for some reason, and you can say it and the conversation can immediately be over, then by all means. But no chatting. Also on buses. Basically, any public transportation. )
Yes, it is so horrible.
You’re already being forced to occupy each other’s personal space. This in itself isn’t horrible. I know you can’t help but be right in front of me. You’re occupying my space (and I’m occupying yours) but you’re not invading it.
But, then you speak to me. Unless you’re saying something that really needed to be said for some reason, then all you’ve accomplished is to place an obligation on me–I’d better answer back or else I’m rude. And that is a purposeful invasion of my personal space. You aren’t coming across as friendly. You’re coming across as either clueless, aggressive or creepy.
I ride public transport 3x/week downtown (train and bus). Very rarely do I talk to people on the train; I never talk to people on the bus (oops, I have talked to one person, once. He was French and was lost). And the more crowded the bus, the quieter it is. Striking up a convo in such close quarters forces you and the other guy to recognize one another as individuals. Yes, that is nice in theory, but in reality, it is fraught with all manner of difficulties. Socially, strangers next to one another on crowded public transport do not exist for one another. It must be some kind of coping mechanism. Whatever it is, it helps make the commute bearable. And as a woman traveling alone, it is safer for me to NOT enter into a discussion with you. Would that it were different, but it’s not.
re: public transport.
I read about a study a while back where someone compared the behaviour of multiple people in lifts to that of monkeys in cages. The behaviour is very similar: avoiding eye contact, giving each other the maxim amount of space possible, no “conversation” or social interaction of any kind as much as is possible, exaggerated politeness or joking when conversation is necessary. It’s all designed to avoid sparking conflict in an enclosed space.
Perhaps public transport is a similar situation. A lot more people, but more space too. So maybe it’s not an english thing… it’s a primate thing.
What sort of jokes do the monkeys make?
A chimp, an orangutan and a gibbon walk into a banana shop…
Well… Yes. Our outlook is that if you are sat at a table, then the only people who are alowed to join you are those you already consider friends. Admittedly if the pub is very busy strangers may be allowed to share your table if they ask politely. In such a case they are also aowed to join your conversation, as long as it’s not an obviously personal one from your tone/content.
Honestly, it’s acceptable in some places to just plonk yoursef down at a table with absolute strangers?
There is a huge difference to us between hinting and telling. Add to this that the usual way to befriend someone over here is to find some common ground for discussion and expand upon it. It’s not done by self promotion (this probably is to do with our general eve of reservation etc as mentioned in the early posts). This is my theory on why we are (quite truthfully) stereotyped as always talking about the weather. It’s something we all experience, and can relate to, so it provides a starting point.
The main thing that comes to me from the quotes provided from the book is that it’s comedy. It’s not supposed to be taken as a serious etiquette guide. I mean isn’t it litte more than a better written equivallent to this?
And if we could, we’d have better things to do than post here 