I say this with genuine sympathy, as to be honest the kind of anthropology I do is not far removed from stand-up comedy - at least, the sort of stand-up routines that involve a lot of jokes beginning 'Have you ever noticed how people always...?' The best stand-up comics invariably follow this with some pithy, acute, clever observation on the minutiae of human behaviour and social relations. Social scientists like me try hard to do the same, but there is a difference: the stand-up comics have to get it right. If their observation does not 'ring true' or 'strike a chord', they don't get a laugh, and if this happens too often, they don't make a living. Social scientists can talk utter rubbish for years and still pay their mortgages. At its best, however, social science can sometimes be almost as insightful as good stand-up comedy.
HUMOUR AND CLASS
Although elsewhere in this book I scrupulously identify class differences and variations in the application and observance of certain rules, you may have noticed that there has been no mention of class in this chapter. This is because the 'guiding principles' of English humour are classless. The taboo on earnestness, and the rules of irony, understatement and self-deprecation transcend all class barriers. No social rule is ever universally obeyed, but among the English these humour rules are universally (albeit subconsciously) understood and accepted. Whatever the class context, breaches are noticed, frowned upon and ridiculed.
The rules of English humour may be classless, but it must be said that a great deal of everyday English humour is preoccupied with class issues. This is not surprising, given our national obsession with class, and our propensity to make everything a subject for humour. We are always laughing at class-related habits and foibles, mocking the aspirations and embarrassing mistakes of social climbers, and poking gentle fun at the class system.
HUMOUR RULES AND ENGLISHNESS
What do these rules of humour tell us about Englishness? I said that the value we put on humour, its central role in English culture and conversation, was the main defining characteristic, rather than any specific feature of the humour itself. But we still need to ask whether there is something distinctive about English humour apart from its dominance and pervasiveness, whether we are talking about a matter of quality as well as quantity. I think the answer is a qualified 'yes'.
The Importance of Not Being Earnest rule is not just another way of saying 'humour rules': it is about the fine line between seriousness and solemnity, and it seems to me that our acute sensitivity to this distinction, and our intolerance of earnestness, are distinctively English
There is also something quintessentially English about the nature of our response to earnestness. The 'Oh, come off it!' rule encapsulates a peculiarly English blend of armchair cynicism, ironic detachment, a squeamish distaste for sentimentality, a stubborn refusal to be duped or taken in by fine rhetoric, and a mischievous delight in pinpricking the balloons of pomposity and self-importance.
We also looked at the rules of irony, and its sub-rules of understatement and humorous self-deprecation, and I think we can conclude that while none of these forms of humour is in itself unique to the English, the sheer extent of their use in English conversation gives a 'flavour' to our humour that is distinctively English. And if practice makes perfect, the English certainly ought to have achieved a somewhat greater mastery of irony and its close comic relations than other less compulsively humorous cultures. So, without wanting to blow our own trumpet or come over all patriotic, I think we can safely say that our skills in the arts of irony, understatement and self-mockery are, on the whole, not bad.
18. The playwright Alan Bennett - or to be precise, a character in one of his plays (The Old Country).
19. I will examine the role of irony in business culture-clashes in more detail in the chapter on Work.
LINGUISTIC CLASS CODES
One cannot talk about English conversation codes without talking about class. And one cannot talk at all without immediately revealing one's own social class. This may to some extent apply internationally, but the most frequently quoted comments on the issue are English - from Ben Jonson's 'Language most shows a man. Speak that I may see thee' to George Bernard Shaw's rather more explicitly class-related: 'It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate him or despise him'. We may like to think that we have become less class-obsessed in recent times, but Shaw's observation is as pertinent now as it ever was. All English people, whether they admit it or not, are fitted with a sort of social Global Positioning Satellite computer that tells us a person's position on the class map as soon as he or she begins to speak.
There are two main factors involved in the calculation of this position: terminology and pronunciation - the words you use and how you say them. Pronunciation is a more reliable indicator (it is relatively easy to learn the terminology of a different class), so I'll start with that.
THE VOWELS VS CONSONANTS RULE
The first class indicator concerns which type of letter you favour in your pronunciation - or rather, which type you fail to pronounce. Those at the top of the social scale like to think that their way of speaking is 'correct', as it is clear and intelligible and accurate, while lower-class speech is 'incorrect', a 'lazy' way of talking - unclear, often unintelligible, and just plain wrong. Exhibit A in this argument is the lower-class failure to pronounce consonants, in particular the glottal stop - the omission (swallowing, dropping) of 't's - and the dropping of 'h's. But this is a case of the pot calling the kettle (or ke'le, if you prefer) black. The lower ranks may drop their consonants, but the upper class are equally guilty of dropping their vowels. If you ask them the time, for example, the lower classes may tell you it is ''alf past ten' but the upper class will say 'hpstn'. A handkerchief in working-class speech is ''ankercheef', but in upper-class pronunciation becomes 'hnkrchf'.
Upper-class vowel-dropping may be frightfully smart, but it still sounds like a mobile-phone text message, and unless you are used to this clipped, abbreviated way of talking, it is no more intelligible than lower-class consonant-dropping. The only advantage of this SMS-speak is that it can be done without moving the mouth very much, allowing the speaker to maintain an aloof, deadpan expression and a stiff upper lip.
The upper class, and the upper-middle and middle-middle classes, do at least pronounce their consonants correctly - well, you'd better, if you're going to leave out half of your vowels - whereas the lower classes often pronounce 'th' as 'f' ('teeth' becomes 'teef', 'thing' becomes 'fing') or sometimes as 'v' ('that' becomes 'vat', 'Worthing' is 'Worving'). Final 'g's can become 'k's, as in 'somefink' and 'nuffink'. Pronunciation of vowels is also a helpful class indicator. Lower-class 'a's are often pronounced as long 'i's - Dive for Dave, Tricey for Tracey. (Working-class Northerners tend to elongate the 'a's, and might also reveal their class by saying 'Our Daaave' and 'Our Traaacey'.) Working class 'i's, in turn, may be pronounced 'oi', while some very upper-class 'o's become 'or's, as in 'naff orf'. But the upper class don't say 'I' at all if they can help it: one prefers to refer to oneself as 'one'. In fact, they are not too keen on pronouns in general, omitting them, along with articles and conjunctions, wherever possible - as though they were sending a frightfully expensive telegram. Despite all these peculiarities, the upper classes remain convinced that their way of speaking is the only proper way: their speech is the norm, everyone else's is 'an accent' - and when the upper classes say that someone speaks with 'an accent', what they mean is a working-class accent.