Are you U or non-U?

I wrote about Nancy Mitford the other day, which reminded me of another bestseller she wrote, Noblesse Oblige (1956).

There she developed the concept first introduced by Prof. Alan Ross: U (as in ‘Upper Class’) and Non-U. Mitford described the tell-tale signs, mostly but not exclusively linguistic, by which one could identify different social classes.

The little book became a huge success, mainly because most people didn’t realise it was merely a tongue-in-cheek attempt to épater les bourgeois. That is a rather exclusive game, typically played only by two groups: the upper classes and, mostly, creative intelligentsia. Since Mitford straddled both groups, few could do it better.

Later, in 1983, Paul Fussell wrote an American equivalent, titled Class. His effort was more detailed and, interestingly, caused even more of a stir. Understandably so, for Americans have always found class to be a painful subject best avoided at all costs.

To that end they like to claim that social classes don’t really exist in the US and, if they do, no one pays any attention to the differences. Fussell exposed that myth for what it is: wishful thinking. In fact, he wrote, Americans are more sensitive than Britons to class distinctions – and the more acute their sensitivity, the more ‘prole’ (his word) they are.

Getting back to the firm ground of His Majesty’s realm, many of the distinguishing features highlighted by Nancy Mitford no longer apply. For example, she was appalled by the egalitarian familiarity of addressing strangers by their Christian names.

When I moved to Britain from the US in 1988, I dutifully observed her injunction, only to be told by older people to ditch the Mr and Mrs nonsense. For example, I had stubbornly insisted on addressing my mother-in-law – who couldn’t be called a prole by any stretch of the imagination – as ‘Mrs Blackie’ until she ordered me to call her Bridget.

(No such problems for my American son: he met my English family when he was 18 and instantly started addressing people four times his age by their Christian names – tempora do bloody well mutantur, don’t they?)

But that the tell-tell signs have changed doesn’t mean they no longer exist. Thus, a social chasm separates an Englishman who says ‘napkin’ from one who says ‘serviette’. And a discerning observer can instantly tell a man’s class from what he calls the largest room in his house. For the record, ‘front room’, ‘lounge’, ‘living room’ are far beneath ‘sitting room’ and ‘drawing room’.

There are hundreds of other such differentiators: an Englishman referring to the main meal of the day as ‘tea’ would be shunned by those who describe it as ‘dinner’ and especially by those who say ‘supper’. U people die, non-U ones pass on; the former are mad, the latter are mental; vegetables and puddings are U, greens and desserts (and especially sweets) aren’t; U people catch their reflection in the looking-glass, not in the mirror – and so on.

When I say hundreds, that’s exactly what I mean. That’s why anyone pretending to be upper- or upper-middle class is on a losing wicket. He is bound to slip up somewhere, causing his interlocutors to smile in a barely perceptible way.

In fact, making such an attempt is a sure sign of someone Paul Fussell calls a ‘prole’. Every upper- or upper-middle person I’ve met doesn’t give an infinitesimal damn about which class he appears to be. Such people are socially secure, which of course doesn’t mean they are indistinguishable from the lower classes.

The nuances of the English language are my life-long object of study, my love and my livelihood. That’s why Nancy Mitford’s and Fussell’s knock-about fun has always delighted me. Yet some class characteristics go far beyond the difference between a napkin and a serviette.

For me, the most important differentiator was mentioned by Oscar Wilde in one of his aphorisms: “A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.” Or causes discomfort to other people, I’d be tempted to add.

In other words, a gentleman, whom Mitford would describe as a U, gauges his behaviour by the effect it has on other people. A real gentleman does so intuitively, without thinking; an aspiring one has to watch his step. But neither one is selfish at the expense of the people around him.

Now, much to my shame I don’t have a good eye for physical detail – I am to a large, though not infinite, extent oblivious to my material surroundings. But I have always been keenly interested in observing, and classifying, human behaviour.

Since I have been doing that for a depressingly long time, I can afford the luxury of taxonomic generalisation. With that proviso, I think I can dispel the myth of selfless, altruistic lower classes and the egoistic, disdainful ‘posh’ people (a little free tip: no one who says ‘posh’ is posh).

Getting on a crowded bus or going to a supermarket would give one sufficient grounds for stating exactly the opposite. You are much more likely to be jostled or pushed out of the way by a hoodie than by a tweedy gentleman. A manifestly lower class chap is more likely to obstruct a supermarket aisle with his trolley, blocking a gentleman’s path.

Old Britons say it hasn’t always been like that, and they may well be right. In fact, one detects a big difference in the conduct of lower-class Britons my age or older and their children. The former tend to be chirpy to the latter’s surly, well-mannered as opposed to rude and socially at ease rather than gauche.

The older people are just as likely to have their trouble cook their tea in the evening and serve it in front of the box in the lounge, but they’ll know to place their supermarket trolley along the aisle, not across it. Much as I love Nancy Mitford, and like Paul Fussell, that to me is more important than the odd unfortunate turn of phrase.

I could venture a guess about the reasons for that behavioural shift from one generation to the next, but that would take me beyond my subject today. Perhaps some other time.