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NATIONAL CHARACTER

 

Continuity and individualism

 

Britain is believed to be a ‘land of tradition’. It is a reputation based on what can be seen in public life, on centuries of political continuity and on its attendant ceremonies. The annual ceremony of the state opening of Parliament carefully follows customs which are centuries old. So does the military ceremony of ‘trooping the colour’. Likewise, the changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace never changes.

However, in their private everyday lives, the British are probably less inclined to follow tradition that the people of most other countries. There are few age-old customs that are followed by the majority of families on certain special occasions. The country has fewer local parades or processions with genuine fool roots than most other countries. The English language has fewer sayings or proverbs in common everyday use than many other languages. The British are too individualistic for these things.

The British may not behave in traditional ways, but they like symbols of tradition. For example, in the early 1990s, London’s famous red buses were privatized. The different bus companies wanted to paint their buses in their own company colours. But many people, fond of the familiar red bus, were against this change and the government ruled that all buses had to stay red, both because this is what the people of London wanted and also because it believed this would be better for the tourist trade.

In general, the British value continuity over modernity for its own sake. They do not consider it especially smart to live in a new house. In fact, there is prestige in living in an obviously old one. They have a general sentimental attachment to older, supposedly safer times. The British like their Christmas cards to depict scenes from past centuries; they like their pubs to look old; they complained bitterly when their system of currency was changed.

 

Being different

 

The British can be stubbornly conservative about anything which is perceived as a token of Britishness. In these matters, their conservatism can combine with their individualism – they are rather proud of being different. It is, for example, very difficult to imagine that they will change from driving on the left-hand side of the road to driving on the right. It does not matter that nobody can think of any intrinsic advantage of driving on the left. Britain has so far resisted pressure from business people to adopt Central European Time, remaining stubbornly one hour behind; and it continues to start its financial year not, as other countries do, at the beginning of the calendar year but rather at the beginning of April.

Systems of measurement are another example. For decades now, British authorities have been promoting the scales that are used nearly everywhere else in the world (which in Britain are known collectively as the ‘metric system’). But they have had only partial success. It is only in the twenty-first century that people in Britain have become accustomed to buying petrol for their cars in litres or have started to understand the TV weather forecasters when they mention a temperature on the Celsius scale (and many still have to ‘translate’ it into Fahrenheit). British people continue to measure distances and themselves using scales of measurement that are not used anywhere in Europe. British manufacturers are obliged to give the weight of their packaged goods in kilos and grams, but many also give the equivalent in pounds and ounces because they know that the latter are more likely to mean something to people. However, British law stipulates that draught beer must be sold in pints or parts thereof.



· If a British person asks you, how tall you are, your answer ‘one, sixty three’ would probably mean little to him. Instead, you’d better say ‘five foot four’. This means 5 feet and 4 inches.

1 inch = 2.53 cm

12 inches = 1 foot = 30.48 cm

 

· If you see a road sign saying ‘Oxford 50’, this does not mean that Oxford is 50 kilometres away – it is 50 miles away. All road signs in Britain are shown in miles. Similarly, for shorter distances, most people talk about yards rather then metres.

1 yard = 0.92 m

1760 yards = 1 mile = 1.6 km

 

· Similarly, it would not help a British person to hear that you weigh 67 kilos. It will be more informative if you say you are ‘ten stone seven’ or ‘ten-and-a-half stone’ – that is, 10 stone and 7 pounds.

1 lb – 0.456 kg

14 lbs = 1 stone = 6.38 kg

 

Formality and informality

 

There is a difference between observing formalities and being formal in everyday life. Attitudes towards clothes are a good indication of this difference. It all depends on whether a person is playing a public role or a private role. When people are ‘on duty’, they have to obey some quite rigid rules on this matter. A male bank employee, for example is expected to wear a suit and a tie.

On the other hand, when people are not playing a public role there seem to be no rules at all. The British are probably more tolerant of ‘strange’ clothing than people in most countries. What you wear is considered to be your own business. You may find, for example, the same bank employee, on his lunch break in hot weather, walking through the street with his tie round his waist and his collar unbuttoned. He is no longer ‘at work’, so he can look how he likes – and for his employers to criticize him for his appearance would be seen as a gross breach of privacy.

Being friendly in Britain often involves showing that you are not bothering with the formalities. This means not addressing someone by his or her title (Mr, Mrs, Professor, etc.), not dressing smartly when entertaining guests, not shaking hands when meeting and not saying ‘please’ when making a request. When they avoid doing these things with you, the British are not being unfriendly or disrespectful – they are implying that you are in the category ‘friend’, and so all the rules can be ignored. To address someone by their title or to say ‘please’ is to observe formalities and therefore distancing. The same is true about shaking hands. Most people would do it only when being introduced to a stranger or when meeting an acquaintance (but not a close friend) after a long time. While shaking hands is still often taken as a sign of reserve, such behaviour is equally part of a rejection and dislike of formality.

Similarly, most British people do not feel welcomed if, on being invited to somebody’s house, they find the hold in smart clothes and a grand table set for them. They do not feel flattered by this – they feel intimidated. It makes them feel they can’t relax. Buffet-type meals, in which people do not sit down at table to eat, are a common form of hospitality. If you are in a British person’s house and are told to ‘help yourself’ to something, your host is not being rude or suggesting that you are of no importance – he or she is showing that you are completely accepted like ‘one of the family’.

 

 

Reserve

 

The British, especially the English, have a reputation for being reserved in their dealings with other people. They are often considered to be withdrawn and reserved. The only emotion habitually displayed in public is laughter. Reserve is not considered to be confined to well-bred members of the upper classes. However, there are signs that this traditional habit of reserve is breaking down. Although it is still not the dominant convention, more and more people now kiss when meeting a friend. The British people are becoming more comfortable with the public display of emotions. They shocked themselves by their very public outpouring of grief following the sudden death of Princess Diana in 1997. It is possible that the everyday behaviour of the British is returning to the more emotional tenor which it had in the centuries before the Victorian ‘stiff upper lip’ became dominant.

 

An island race.

 

Traditionally, the British have been known as insular and Britain has been described as ‘a tight little right little island’. In the early nineteen century, the poet Byron wrote of ‘the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an islander’. Later in the century the tern ‘Little Englanders’ came to mean isolationist who believe in the concept ‘my country right or wrong’. Winston Churchill, Britain’s Prime Minister during the Second World War, used the title ‘The Island Race’ at the start of his history of the English-speaking people.

A story which further illustrates British insularity refers to a new announcement, which said ‘There has been a persistent fog at London airport during the week-end, and the Continent has been cut off for twenty-four hours’. The headline in the Times was, as follows: FOG STOPS CROSS-CHANNEL TRAFFIC: CONTINENT ISOLATED.

The British have been considered as an island race partly because of their imperialism, cultural isolation and international policies. Some of this attitude can be explained historically.

 

Anti-intellectualism

 

Among many people in Britain, there exists a suspicion of education and ‘high culture’. This is manifested in a number of ways. For example, teachers and academic staff, although respected, do not have as high status in society as they do in most other countries. Nobody normally proclaims their academic qualifications or title to the world at large. No professor would expect, or want, to be addressed as ‘professor’ on any but the most formal occasion.

However, the British are passionate about quizzes, which are among the most popular of all TV programmes. Factual knowledge is something to be proud of. But abstract thinking and scholarship is not. Many everyday words and expressions in the English language testify to this anti-intellectual tendency.

· The slang word ‘swot’ was first used in English public schools. It denoted someone who worked hard and did well academically. It was a term of abuse. Swots were not popular.

· School life can still be tough for an academically minded pupil in England. If a student shows a desire to learn, he may be called a ‘teacher’s pet’. If he or she is successful in the attempt, they may be reminded that ‘nobody likes a smartarze’.

· And it doesn’t get much better in adult life. The word ‘clever’ often has negative connotations. It suggests a person who cannot quite be trusted (as in the expression, ‘too clever by half’). And to refer to a person as somebody who ‘gets all their ideas from books’ is to speak of them negatively. It raises the suspicion that they are lacking in ‘common sense’, which is something the English value very highly

· Even the word ‘intellectual’ itself is subject to negative connotations.

 

Supporting the underdog

 

Some customs of road use illustrate the British tendency to be on the side of ‘the underdog’ (i.e. the weaker side in any competition). On the roads, the underdog is the pedestrian. The law states that if a person has just one foot on a zebra crossing, then vehicles must stop. And they usually do. Conversely, British pedestrians interpret the colour of the human figure at traffic lights as advice, not an instruction. If the figure is red but no cars are approaching, they feel perfectly entitled to cross the road immediately. In Britain, jaywalking (crossing the road by dodging in between cars) has never been illegal.

 

 

QUESTIONS:

 

1. Why has Britain the reputation of a land of tradition?

2. What is this reputation based on?

3. What do the English value most of all?

4. What is their attitude to changes introduced into their everyday life, especially from abroad?

5. What is their attitude to the past? Why?

6. What is meant by formality and informality?

7. What characteristic features are usually attributed to the British?

8. What are the connotations of such words as ‘clever’, ‘intellectual’?

9. What does it mean to be on the side of ‘the underdog’?

 

 

UNIT EIGHT

 


Date: 2015-01-12; view: 1412


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