Books : Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour

Rating: - If you like this book, you may like mine
If you enjoyed this book, you may find my tome, The Patient English: An Unconventional Guide To A Conventional Nation, interesting - especially for its in-depth analysis of queues, the stiff upper lip, and its revelation that Oxbridge colleges serve far too much port to their posh students. It develops several themes from my first book, A Tourist's Guide To The British, which provoked an appalled outcry in the national press in part because I mentioned that folk from my native Yorkshire don't smile except when they have wind. You can find both books on this site - if you search hard enough.

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Rating: - loved it
I accidently found this book in a Hong Kong store amongst English Grammar books and dictionaries. It is very entertaining and I have reccommended it to foreign friends who are bemused by us and English friends who want to laugh at themselves. The American woman I share an office with read it and it has confirmed her suspicions, not least from working with me, that we are all quite mad!

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Rating: - An eye-opener
I read this book over a weekend in preparation for a seminar on Working with the British. Although the majority of what is in there is the sort of things we know sub consciously, she explains our key characteristics in an eloquent and amusing way. I found myself laughing out loud as I saw myself and people I know in her descriptions.

I really recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about what makes the English so - well - English. Well researched and very original, and compelling reading. Enjoy!

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Rating: - Very amusing
There's something in me which means that I'm marginally embarrassed to have bought this book. I removed the book's outer jacket so that people on the train wouldn't see what I was reading. Maybe I have the 'dis-ease' which the author refers to in the book -- so innately private, I didn't like the thought of other people seeing what I was reading.

The book is humorous because it looks at the many obvious characteristics of the English. Things like not speaking to people on the train because you're worried that striking up a conversation will lead to awkwardness later is quite natural, but it seems that this isn't something that afflicts other nations.

She refers to Jeremy Paxman's book 'The English' heavily throughout, which is sensible, as it is a much more comprehensive book.

This book is simple social commentary, which is easy and enjoyable to read.

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Rating: - mainly interesting but fluffily padded
This book looks at the english from the perspective of a professional anthropologist. Its focus is the elucidation of the implicit rules of behaviour from observation - generally from the author's own people-watching.

This focus prvides the book with its main strength, the successful illumination of these rules; but also with one of its failings, a flat telling of the details with no real momentum.

There is some momentum to the exposition, provided by an ongoing attempt by the author to unite the various empirical results as manifestations of a small set of fundamental patterns of behaviour. However, any momentum provided is dissipated by the author's proclivity for including personal details of her life as "illumination" for the points she is making.

One or two indulgences would be forgiveable: unfortunately the author does not show much constraint in this aspect of her writing, with the result that the reader becomes increasingly annoyed whenever a new anecdote appears.

While some of the patterns of behaviour are so well known as to be cliches (e.g. talking about the weather), the author does discuss these and other less well known patterns in a quite refreshing way and the rules she digs out from her observations generally ring true with the reader's experience.

Overall then, despite some shortcomings, the book is successful and mainly enjoyable to read.

The principal framework for discussing variations in these rules is, from an english perspective, the most important: the class system. Possibly the book would have found it beneficial to use other frameworks like regional variation.

As illustration, although most of the rules arrived at successfully capture the reader's everyday patterns of behaviour, as noted above, the author's discussion of tipping bar-staff in pubs is inadequately observed and misses some important points of the basic mechanics of the transaction, points that would have been discernible if she'd observed differing practises in english cities.

Still, if you enjoyed Paxman's book, you'll find this book a worthwhile read.