The initial stage of the parting process is often, deceptively, an unseemly rush, as no-one wants to be the last to leave, for fear of 'outstaying their welcome' (a serious breach of the privacy rules). Thus, as soon as one person, couple or family stands up and starts making apologetic noises about traffic, baby-sitters, or the lateness of the hour, everyone else immediately looks at their watch, with exclamations of surprise, jumps to their feet and starts hunting for coats and bags and saying preliminary goodbyes. (Although 'Pleased to meet you' is problematic as a greeting, it is acceptable to say 'It was nice to meet you' at this point, if you are parting from people to whom you have recently been introduced - even if you have exchanged no more than a few mumbled greetings.) If you are visiting an English home, be warned that you should allow a good ten minutes - and it could well be fifteen or even twenty - from these initial goodbyes to your final departure.
There is an old Dudley Moore piano-sketch - a spoof on the more flamboyant, self-indulgent, romantic composers - in which he plays a piece that keeps sounding as though it has ended (da, da, DUM), but then continues with a trill leading to another dramatic 'ending' (diddley, diddley, dum, DUM, DA-DUM), followed by yet more 'final'-sounding chords (DA, DA-DUM) then more, and so on. This sketch has always reminded me of a typical group of English people attempting to say goodbye to each other. Just when you think that the last farewell has been accomplished, someone always revives the proceedings with yet another 'Well, see you soon, then...', which prompts a further chorus of 'Oh, yes, we must, er, goodbye...', 'Goodbye', 'Thanks again', 'Lovely time', 'Oh, nothing, thank you', 'Well, goodbye, then...', 'Yes, must be off - traffic, er...' 'Don't stand there getting cold, now!', 'No, fine, really...', 'Well, goodbye...' Then someone will say, 'You must come round to us next...' or 'So, I'll email you tomorrow, then...' and the final chords will begin again.
Those leaving are desperate to get away, and those hovering in the doorway are dying to shut the door on them, but it would be impolite to give any hint of such feelings, so everyone must make a great show of being reluctant to part. Even when the final, final, final goodbyes have been said, and everyone is loaded into the car, a window is often wound down to allow a few more parting words. As the leavers drive off, hands may be held to ears with thumbs and little fingers extended in a phone-shape, promising further communication. It is then customary for both parties to wave lingering, non-verbal goodbyes to each other until the car is out of sight. When the long-goodbye ordeal is over, we all heave an exhausted sigh of relief.
As often as not, we then immediately start grumbling about the very people from whom, a moment earlier, we could apparently hardly bear to tear ourselves. 'God, I thought they were never going to go!' 'The Joneses are very nice and all that, but she does go on a bit...' Even when we have thoroughly enjoyed the gathering, our appreciative comments following the long goodbye will be mixed with moans about how late it is, how tired we are, how much in need of a cup of tea/strong drink - and how nice it is to have the place to ourselves again (or to be going home to our own bed).
And yet, if for any reason the long goodbye has been cut short, we feel uncomfortable, dissatisfied - and either guilty, if we have committed the breach of the rule, or somewhat resentful, if the other parties have been a bit hasty in their farewells. We may not be explicitly conscious of the fact that a rule has been broken, but we feel a vague sense of incompleteness; we know that somehow the goodbyes have not been said 'properly'. To prevent such malaise, English children are indoctrinated in the etiquette of the long-goodbye ritual from an early age: 'Say goodbye to Granny, now.' 'And what do we say? We say thank you Granny!' 'And say goodbye to Auntie Jane.' 'No, say goodbye NICELY!' 'And say bye-bye to Pickles.' 'We're leaving now, so say goodbye again.' 'Come on now, wave, wave bye-bye!'17
The English often refer to this ritual not as 'saying goodbye' but as 'saying our goodbyes', as in 'I can't come to the station, so we'll say our goodbyes here'. I discussed this with an American visitor, who said, 'You know, the first time I heard that expression, I didn't really register the plural - or I guess I thought it meant you said one each or something. Now I know it means a LOT of goodbyes'.
GROOMING-TALK RULES AND ENGLISHNESS
The weather-speak rules have already given us some clues about the 'grammar' of Englishness, and the grooming-talk rules can now help us to identify a few more of the defining characteristics we are seeking.
The rules of introduction confirm the weather-speaking findings on problems of reserve and social inhibition, and show that without 'facilitators', we are quite unable to overcome these difficulties. A tendency to awkwardness, embarrassment and general social ineptitude must now be incorporated into our 'grammar' - an important factor, as this tendency must surely have a significant effect on all aspects of English social relations.
The no-name rule highlights an English preoccupation with privacy, and a somewhat unsociable, suspicious, standoffishness. This rule has also given us the first hint of the convoluted, irrational, Looking-Glass nature of English etiquette. The 'Pleased to meet you' problem provides our first evidence of the way in which class-consciousness pervades every aspect of English life and culture, but also exposes our reluctance to acknowledge this issue.
The gossip rules bring to light a number of important characteristics, the most striking of which is, again, the English obsession with privacy - also emphasized by the guessing-game rule, the distance rule, and the 'exception that proves the rule' of the print media. The sex differences in gossip rules remind us that, in any culture, what is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander. This sounds like a rather obvious point, but it is one that was often ignored by early anthropologists, and is sometimes glossed over by those who comment on Englishness today: both have a tendency to assume that 'male' rules are 'the' rules. Anyone who believes, for example, that the English are not very excitable or animated in their everyday speech, has clearly never listened to two English females gossiping. The normal rules of restraint and reserve, in this case, apply only to gossiping males.
The rules of male and female bonding-talk reinforce the goose-and-gander point, but beneath striking (potentially dazzling) surface differences, they turn out to have critical features in common, including prohibition of boasting, prescription of humour and abhorrence of 'earnestness', polite hypocrisy and the triumph of etiquette over reason.
Finally, the long goodbye rule highlights (again) the importance of embarrassment and ineptitude in English social interactions - our apparently congenital inability to handle simple matters such as greeting and parting with any consistency or elegance - but also provides a remarkable example of the irrational excesses of English politeness.
13. To be fair, I should point out that although 'How do you do?' is technically a question, and written as such, it is spoken as a statement - with no rising, interrogative intonation at the end - so the custom of repeating it back is not quite as absurd as it might seem (almost, but not quite).
14. And this was research conducted in a manner of which I approve, not by questionnaire or lab experiments, but by eavesdropping on real conversations in natural settings, so we can have some confidence in these findings.