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Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour
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In Stock
Price:
$17.95
$11.59*
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| Part No: | 1857885082 |
| Manufacturer: | Nicholas Brealey Publishing |
| MFG Part: | |
| Customer Rating: | 5.0 / 5.0 |
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- ISBN13: 9781857885088
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
A bestseller in the UK, Watching the English is a biting, affectionate, insightful and often hilarious look English Society. Putting the English national character under her anthropological microscope, Fox finds a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and bizarre codes of behavior. Through a mixture of anthropological analysis and her own unorthodox experiments-even using herself as a reluctant guinea-pig-Fox discovers what these unwritten codes tell us about Englishness.
| Amazing Find! | 2010-03-11 | 5 / 5 |
| | This book has been a joy to read--highly entertaining! I have also found it to accurately depict the English, having studied abroad. An amazing find! |
| A funny but deep book | 2010-03-01 | 5 / 5 |
| Wonderfully written, this book will be a delight to read for all non-English people living, doing business or just meeting English people... well, maybe even for English people!
The author dissects, in a light, fun to read but deep style, the English behavior in all aspects of life, from work to sex. You are guaranteed to have some laughs you find, scientifically described in the book, a number of behaviors you have already noticed in your everyday life.
(The reviewer was compensated for posting this review. However, the opinion stated in the review is that of the reviewer and the reviewer alone. Further, the reviewer independently selected this product to review and has no affiliation with the product maker/distributor, or the review requester.)
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| The peas, yes the peas | 2010-02-15 | 4 / 5 |
| Thank goodness for the peas. To scoop or push right on page one. My father, a Guards officer from the second war, scooped. My mother, whose father was a Guards officer in the first war, pushed. It was the Somme all over again.
Some details are a bit off. We used weather chatter to determine class, soften interclass conversations and eliminate potential conflict. The Queen still does this, probably 100 times a day.
No napkin rings? We were given them at birth. Not too fancy though. That would never do.
On eating fish, Fox missed the two forks rule, which does required filleting before eating.
I'm not sure about having to understand pub life to understand the English. I took my 90-year-old grandfather to his first pub visit ever. He felt strongly that he shouldn't be seen in such a place. I explained that at his age there weren't too many people he knew left around to see him. That was all right and off we went. He had a good time too.
One of my favorite injunctions was never to shake hands with equals but always with servants. To this bizarre notion, I asked what any child would, "Why?" "To make them feel equal." OK.
Another was a sniffy statement by my father just before we moved to France that the French have dreadful manners. "They insist on shaking hands with everyone." As, we were told in a tone of undisguised disgust, do Americans (I am now one). I remember being quite distressed at my first handshake. Now, I amuse myself by shaking hands with absolutely everyone I meet when I go home.
Once you have a thoroughly American accent and seriously foreign demeanor, one of the fun things to do in England is to get involved in some snotty conversation where the English carve out their circles. This is a vicious little pass-time where some people in the group create a sort of sub-conversation full of allusions that ill bred lower class hangers on or equally vulgar Americans don't notice. The fun starts when you let this go on for a good while so the in group is perfectly comfortable that it has established its obvious superiority. Then, at exactly the right in group time, without looking up (key to this manouver), you simply say "Quite." For added affect, a sip of your drink. The stunned collective frisson is one of the most amusing things you can ever watch in the English.
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| I'm not crazy I'm just English | 2009-11-30 | 4 / 5 |
| The introduction was a bit dry and uninteresting but once I got in to the chapters on behaviors I couldn't put this book down.
I was born in England, my parents emigrated to the US when I was 4. I grew up "American" but I was raised by 2 English people (Mum was 30 when she had me and Dad was 40.) I've never been able to completely put my finger on why I'm more at home in England - a foreign country - than in America - my home.
It's almost a relief I'm not crazy - I'm English! |
| Great book | 2009-09-18 | 5 / 5 |
| | I have British friends and it is really true in many respects. This is a very Entertaining book would recomend it. |
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