Discovering class by the words that are used

Hardly anybody refers to the controversy these days, either in Britain or elsewhere. But in 1954, when Alan S C Ross, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, published his article in a Finnish professional linguistic journal entitled Linguistic class-indicators in present day England, the commentary caused a minor stir, which remained largely academic. Ross had differentiated between U, or the upper class, from non-U or the aspiring middle classes through the use of language. Though Ross’s piece had also deliberated upon writing styles and pronunciation, it was the differences of vocabulary that was the main thrust of his research and also the wedge that separated the two classes.

Irrespective of the soundness of the analysis, it made jolly good reading. Later in 1956, Hamish Hamilton published Nancy Mitford’s Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy. The book also included her essay, The English Aristocracy, published a year earlier by Stephen Spender in Encounter. That did it. The publication was a huge success. It caused a major stir. Until Mitford’s treatise, England was blissfully unaware of U and non-U usage.

Curiously enough, Mitford had not coined the two expressions. In fact, she treated the whole issue as a joke or, as a critic put it, “in a spirit of mischief”. But people took the matter awfully seriously. Overnight, Nancy Mitford was catapulted as the arbiter of good manners and as an authority on who was and who wasn’t a member of the upper class. She received hundreds of letters from people who wanted to know if they were stuck-up snobs or… just common. A cartoonist in Punch, or was it The Daily Express, had drawn a sketch of a stodgy, bald-headed, gouty octogenarian; obviously a military type , one bandaged foot on a low stool, slumped in an easy chair, fast asleep in front of a roaring fire. A few tiger skins lay on the floor. The pictures on the wall above the chimney piece were 12 portraits of the same face. His wife, an open book in her hand, said to her husband, “Cedric, are we U or non-U? You just said your dress suit needed pressing.”

In case people in the English department of universities, colleges and schools in Pakistan, whose curiosity has been aroused and who are still on this article, and haven’t yet switched to the sports pages, here are two separate reports about a fictitious crime that has taken place. If they can guess which of the two versions could have been written by one of the Mitford sisters, the version that uses words in (brackets) or the one that doesn’t, they should send their CV to Eton or Westminster.



They found him near the graveyard (cemetery). He had obviously fallen off his bike (cycle). His spectacles (glasses) and false teeth (dentures) lay on the ground near some vegetables (greens). The inspector wondered why he still had his dinner jacket (dress suit) on and why a napkin (serviette) smeared with jam (preserve) was stuck in his collar. He also smelled of scent (perfume), though he didn’t look the sort of person who would use it. Perhaps a woman was involved. He looked rich (wealthy), but was he also a little mad (mental)? The inspector carried him into the drawing room (lounge) of the house (home) and placed him on the sofa (settee). Before using the telephone he had to visit the lavatory (toilet). He felt a little ill (sick). Could it have been the pudding (sweet) his wife had given him the previous evening?

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2014.

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