Pretty much the best part about England is that they have divided their vocabulary up into U- and non-U aspects of speech, with the net result being that pretty much whatever word you choose to employ in a given situation, you sound like a grasping middle-class grasper and people talk about your graspiness in horrified tones the moment you leave the room. There’s a wrong way to refer to the bathroom over there! Imagine that. Asking to use the bathroom, and in the meanwhile exposing yourself as a grasping piece of garbage whose parents live in an apartment. What a country!
| U | Non-U |
|---|---|
| Ankle waterfall | Bicycle |
| Binky-punt wrap | Dress suit |
| That’s Jeffrey | Jack (cards) |
| In-The-Ground whatsits | Greens |
| Isn’t-a-bit-of | Ice cream |
| Nose ghosts | Perfume |
| Tarquin stick rally. | They have (got) a lovely home. |
| Oh, rather not (in bed) | Sick (in bed) |
| Had a mouth-whoopsie at sea. | I was ill on the boat. |
| Window what’s got faces on | Mirror |
| Fire-chozzle | Mantelpiece |
| A Severn ups-me-downs | Cemetery |
| Austrian ear-gigs | Glasses |
| Mouth jimmies | Dentures |
| Visiting dirt friends in Chesterleigh | Pass on |
| Tree sauce | Preserve |
| Grandma’s hand clim-clams | Serviette |
| Sit-you-down-sirs | Settee or couch |
| Ooh-it’s-the-old-white-cabbage-snatcher | Toilet |
| Full of pocket pebbles | Wealthy |
| Eh wot, Smethelwhyte? | Pardon? |
| Scads’ wenchforth | Cheers |
| Meeting the Duke of York | Dinner (for midday meal) |
| Flip-flop dinnertop | Sweet |
| Homosexual’s tea | Lounge |
| Gimbly-gam | Note-paper |
| Grimbly-guff scrambly-damp | Pleased to meet you |
| Morrissey’s night friend | Radio |
| Daytime Daddy | Teacher |
WINDOW WHATS GOT FACES ON
darn it now Im stuck in a Cockney accent for the rest of the day.
WOT
Yes! Wot is best. The other day I came across this film about protesting petrol rationing in 1947, and the banner atop the car 00:13s in made me laugh. http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/BASIC-PETROL-RA…
“WOT! No Basic [sadface]”
I can’t think of anything funny to say about this because I can’t surpass the above, but while actual U and non-U speech isn’t a thing any more, the general concept is still pervasive. My mum, whose family was described by a social worker as ‘working-class income with middle-class values’ when she was a child, is constantly irritated by my ‘lazy’ pronunciation, especially dropping t’s and the like. It makes her anxious because she grew up not wanting to sound ‘common’ (my gran’s main problem with my cousin’s fiancée is that she ‘sounds common’; my gran is a lifelong socialist and it is v strange to hear her making a fuss about these things) and was all too aware that her background could be seen as ‘common’. I grew up very comfortably middle class and elevated myself further in most people’s eyes by going to Cambridge, so I don’t have that anxiety: I’m not upper class, but most people class me as posh.
TL;DR to this day, the British class system makes people feel anxious about themselves in bullshit ways.
So true! Feeling v thankful for my nan who is non-U and proud, and mercilessly mocks anyone too pohsh.
Wait, how do you find out what social workers are saying about you? Is there some website where people anonymously post such things?
This was when she was a child in the 60s and her parents were fostering kids. I think it was from a more casual conversation they were having about the state of the household etc. rather than an official report.
idk about websites, but I worked in childcare for years, and the comments social workers, nurses and health visitors make about clients are shocking.
Oh hey, are we related? My grandma was proud of being working class, proud having voted Labour all her life, proud of marrying a man who made her middle-class, proud to be Northern, proud of not being posh, and proud of talking properly and not having a Grimsby accent.*
* Spoiler: she did in fact have a Grimsby accent.
Don’t mind me, I’ll just be wheezing into this here paper bag (Sack what’s taupe? Holdy-woldy?)…
I will say though, that my favorite part of coming over has been hearing all the accents and working on learning to distinguish them by region, which has been helped along tremendously by all the Rugby World Cup announcers. And Tom Kerridge from Food & Drink. It’s really fascinating because I also love regional particularities in American accents, but so far, I’m not even remotely familiar enough to detect what’s posh and what isn’t (although I did watch a dating show where a guy when on a blind date with a woman who lived in an obviously fancy neighborhood, like shiny cars and big black doors on townhouses kinda fancy, and in the post-interview he said, “I expected her to be a bit what-ho.” And now I have filed that away, as being a posh thing) but I’m just 99% in the dark about all the distinctions that are clearly very important class-wise. But I’m working to figure it out, because I am trying to adopt some things, like for instance “kitchen towels” for “paper towels” so I don’t have to wander around like a lost puppy in the grocery store, but I don’t want to pick up things that would sound affected.
Sorry for this tiny anxiety dump in reply to myself. I just, whew, there’s a lot to learn.
I lived in England briefly back in 2007/08 and I had a coworker from Oxford (where I was living) and another from Kent. O asked K if he was from Oxford, and he said, in a very Kentish accent, “Do I sound like I’m from Oxford??” I said, “I’m from American and even I know he’s not from Oxford!” The vast differences in such a small geographic area is amazing.
Also last week I called a dish towel a “tea towel” despite not having visited in 2 years and not having lived there in 7.
You should hear the Dutch and their different accents. Of which there are very, very many. And a few proper dialects, and even a whole different language up in the North.
Butter, bread, and cheese, these are the same in English and in Friese!
I call ’em tea towels and I don’t know why. Born in NY, raised in TX, currently living in CT. I think it helps distinguish them from the dish rags, which is what you wash the dishes with.
That’s exactly what my mother does! Tea towels and dish rags. Born and raised in Kansas. I remember being very embarrassed at a high school sleepover when I called something a rag and offended the hostess, but that was all Mom ever called them!
Probably because they originally were actual rags! My mom used to cut up old clothing for using this way.
Joanna Lumley’s probably your posh gold standard.
As a side note, I get approximately 153% more posh when I’m speaking to someone I dislike and don’t want them to talk to me. I start behaving like an aristocrat who is totally above you lowly peasant so please go away now.
I’ll keep an ear out for her! Sadly, I don’t think I could actually pull off posh to save my life. My native accent is Texan, and I can subdue it, but I cannot tame it completely.
I remember the first time I heard her natural voice- I wanted to swoon. I want her posh voice partly because she her self is the best possible kind of posh (kind, caring, absolutely perfectly polite to everyone) and partly because it’s what a lighted figgy pudding sounds like.
Weirdly the accent I can actually do for a significant amount of time is Diana, Princess of Wales’ except a little less sharp.
As a West Country person, I find Tom Kerridge’s accent to be suspicious.
We have a rhotic R much like most of America, but he puts rhotic Rs in words that don’t have Rs in! A west country person wouldn’t say ‘a lovely carbonara sorrrce’, they’d pronounce it ‘sowce’.
I’ve got my eye on you and your accent, Tom Kerridge.
Oooo!! You’ve got my attention! As a Texan, I have a similar thing whenever anyone has a little too much twang. I mean I love a good drawl, but occasionally people (actors, mostly) play it up until it sounds, mmm, old fashioned or something.
Non-rhoticity in white southern English is a feature of older generations, but persists in the popular imagination and entertainment. Kevin Spacey in House of Cards sounds like he stepped out of a time portal from the 1920s. African American varieties remain non-rhotic.
“Anybody who’s research Southern accents knows that non-rhoticity has met a rather grim fate. By the mid-20th-Century (at the latest), this feature was confined to the Atlantic South (North Carolina, Coastal Virginia, etc.) and the deep south (Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana). Over the next few decades it would recede rapidly in those areas as well.” http://dialectblog.com/2011/05/09/r-lessness-in-t…
I absolutely love running into elderly folks* from central VA. They sound like they’re from a completely different state than the rest of Virginia, and it’s beautiful.
*or younger working-class folks whose families have lived here time out of mind, which you can tell because they have the surnames of nearby roads.
I love listening to all the accents over here! Though I can only really differentiate from Scottish, ‘op north’, and ‘dahn sahth’. My hubby who is from ‘op north’ can tell me what freaking town someone comes from by their accent. Meanwhile I have developed my own BBC-kiwi voice for making myself understood without an anxiety inducing escalation of, “pardon?” “Um…” “What did you say?”
Slightly more off-topic – I over-corrected on my way back from BBC-kiwi and ordered a coffee in Australian the other day. O_o
>> My hubby who is from ‘op north’ can tell me what freaking town someone comes from by their accent
I love that you think that’s weird eve though it’s COMPLETELY NORMAL. 🙂
(Having said that, I’m from Nottingham, and NOBODY recognises a Nottingham accent unless they are from Leicester, Nottingham or Derby. But I have had several friends visit Nottingam and come back saying, “they all talk like you! I never realised you had an accent, but now I’ve been to Nottingham and they all talk like you!”
Cherwell accident chum
For some reason “That’s Jeffrey” is just killing me whopping a mizzle.
I’d’ve called it a chazzwozzer.
I see you’ve played knifey-spoony before.
Sometimes I get confused between serviettes and sanitary napkins, so I’ll take this solution and just call everything clim-clams
Also I went to the wikipedia article and then clicked through to Estuary English because I am fascinated by the estuary accent even though I’m not really sure what it is. I think it’s Josie Long’s voice so now I’m watching Romance and Adventure on youtube
This is brilliant, enlightening and yet begs the question…would the Toast exist if Wikipedia didn’t? Oh god, I don’t care…I’m just glad they both do, and that we get to enjoy it. Happy Friday, toasteeeeeeeeeeees.
RAISES THE QUESTION, IT *RAISES THE QUESTION* THIS IS THE ONE THING THAT BOTHERS ME FOR SOME REASON
Okay, I asked the Googlebox and it very kindly explained the distinction…noted. I do SO enjoy learning new things, thank you! Although I’m gonna call BS on “THIS IS THE ONE THING THAT BOTHERS ME”.
it IS, normally I think pedantry is a waste of my time but this one kills me for some reason!
“hey Mallory how about just don’t worry about it”
Bless you Mallory! Keep up the good fight!
As a teacher of math (or maths, in U speech) I often must point out to people that they are begging the question in some instance. So it’s really annoying to have this meaningful phrase taken away, when “prompts the question” etc. are already there for those who need to use them.
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=693
DOWN WITH DESCRIPTIVISTS IN THIS ONE PARTICULAR INSTANCE
Mallory still has the Western canon in her house, we’d still have the Toast, we’d just have to review a lot more to keep up.
I spent last night at my Gaudy at possibly the poshest college in Oxford, so today I am feeling the U-est of Us in the whole world ever.
Christ Church or Magdalen?
As an outsider, I feel like Magdalen must be pretty posh, because it’s not pronounced how it’s spelled (which I learned thanks to University Challenge) and that’s a classic trap.
Christ Church!
Reminds me of this image that was floating around 4chan last year:
http://i.imgur.com/76GLD8H.png
I am starting a band just so I can call it the Beef Wellington Ensemble with Lettuce.
I AM LAUGHING WAY TOO HARD AT THIS.
some of those are a bit ehhhh (I mean, 4chan, not surprised), but i kind of want to add upsy-stairsy and electro-rope to my everyday vocabulary now.
I’m just sitting here picturing an incredibly posh game of cards with one interloping social climber desperately try to keep up their façade.
“What’s that card you’ve played?”
“That’s – that’s Jeffrey?”
“OUT”
“There’s a wrong way to refer to the bathroom over there! Imagine that. ”
Reminds me of Ogden Nash’s “genteel Janet,” who is
too refined for this gross planet…
Of refinement she’s a fount, or fountess,
And that is why she’s now a countess.
She was asking for the “little girl’s room”
And a flunky thought she said “the Earl’s room.”
Ha! Thank you for introducing me to that.
My son’s GF is at grad school at Oxford and when she comes home to visit she teaches us the most filthy swear words, but with an Oxford accent , so they are posh..
“Did you hear about the Prime Minister? Apparently he put his humperdinkle in a hog’s tart for a little of the old who’s-your-uncle’s-mum business. Fine by me if his copperpink’s as red as St. Peter’s rooster in the papers, he’s a right zebra slank, he is.”
Did you get distracted by Jeeves and Wooster while deciding on this week’s Bit of Fry and Laurie Friday, Mallory?
Shamelessly stolen from a metafilter comment but
“When I was arranging a mantelpiece display I was told to use used candles so I wouldn’t look like the kind of person who buys everything at once.”
That just seems sensible because new candles always look way too tall, IMO.
This reminds me of being told not to compliment anyone’s possessions because it would imply they purchased them (vs. inheriting).
I do remember a put-down of a politician a few years ago as being ‘the kind of person who has to buy his own furniture’.
Buying furniture is SHAMEFUL, and don’t you forget it!
Yeeeeah, no complimenting houses or items. Clothing and dogs are usually okay.
Following that link reminded me that I never want to visit England, because my last name means toilet over there.
toilet
You must have been reading the letters to Dear Prudence lately. That was a real problem and the parents thought the kid should just suck it up and live in a foreign country where his name meant “rat jelly” (or something like it)
Be glad your first name isn’t John!
I read the real list of U and non-U speech, and the U speech reminds me of how I used to talk when I was seven years old and had read a lot of mid-century Brit Lit (both 1850s and 1950s) but hadn’t met many people.
On the one hand, I am fascinated by the British class system.
On the other, my father is from there, became very upwardly mobile after he emigrated and has a million expressed, suppressed and un-expressed-but-you-find-out-what-you-did-wrong-three-weeks-later hang-ups about it so every time I read about it I feel as if I’m removing my own heart with a blunt potato peeler.
This whole thing reads like a “This is Jinsy” script. Grimbly-guff scrambly-damp. Diddlybits ahoy!
May I respectfully request that ALL commenters on the toast state their accent at the beginning of the post so I can really GET what you’re saying.
(California, then The South-I’m a mess)
Northern California with the oddest moments of British (watched too much PBS during formative years.) Also worked in an Irish engineering firm (that was in Northern California) which threw my vowels out for a bit and left me with a lingering case of referring to cell phones as “mobiles” and the mail as “the post”.
sounds lovely!
Thanks! It’s not a bad accent to have, pretty inoffensive.
Sent from my iPad
somewhat related: did anyone else watch Almost Royal on BBC America last summer? truly one of the GREATEST things I’ve ever seen; watched all 7 episodes multiple times until the dvr died. I have zero interest in real upper class persons but pretend ones on a tour of the US with the ashes of their dead father? yes please
I DONT QUITE LIKE THE CUT OF YOUR JIB!!!
That cake your mother baked wasn’t particularly moist
YOUR FINEST HOUR
highly recommend everyone read “watching the english” for more things about how to accidentally let slip your garbage tendencies.
my best friend who is english forced me to read it “so i could understand her” when i was in high school
weirdly now i feel a deep understanding of all english people
That book is weirdly terrible at class. The descriptions of queuing behaviour and correct pub etiquette still make me laugh on memory, six years after I read it, but she’s rubbish on class. I recommend Grayson Perry’s tv series instead.
(Went to see Grayson Perry’s tapestries, had literally half the things in the middle-class kitchen one and had been looking for everything the middle-class girlfriend was wearing on eBay the previous week.)
One of the best illustrations of the upwardly aspiring middle-class committing a faux-pas (sorry about that) in word and deed is John Betjeman’s poem, ‘How to Get On in Society’.
Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.
Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.
It’s ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule’s comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me.
Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know what I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?
Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I’m afraid the preserve’s full of stones;
Beg pardon, I’m soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.
I am English. This is true.
Because the second one is pronounced "Eh-eh-ron" right?
My mum is from Yorkshire and my dad is a Yank and I grew up in the States (East coast), with a lot of books imported directly across the Pond. My spelling is perpetually confused, and sometimes I lose track of whether an idiom is US/UK/regional.
It is way more embarrassing if I visit family and don’t have another USer to anchor my accent, because I start saying things like “t’ ‘ospital” rather than “to the hospital.” I also apparently throw in a lot of U phrases courtesy of too much BBC, so my aunt teases me for sounding posh. Mostly I worry I will sound like a Yank trying to poorly mimic a Yorkshire/U accent cross and offend someone, but somehow I can’t stop and go back to just Yank.
I thought I knew British — and have occasionally served as translator for Americans who can’t restore the haitches to sentences like “It wern ‘alf crowded in the back of that cab, wunnit” (The Limey, presenting the results of pickpocketing) — but I definitely couldn’t sort the U from non-U on that Wikipedia page. This calls for a web test along the lines of “Cheese or Font?”.
hah, BBC-kiwi! That's what I do too!