Book Review: Fussell on Class

You think America is bad, try living in the UK :-)

It's funny to see Scott laugh at the hierarchy of flowers in a garden, but things like that are common in the UK. I mean, they can be ignored to a greater or lesser degree but they do exist.

Pampas grass in your front garden is definitely out now that it's widely known that it means the residents swing. Even if you do swing, saying so in such an obvious manner is very crass, and only the middle-classes swing. Other classes that perform the same activities are doing something else.

Either I live in a much more adventurous neighborhood than I had ever supposed, or this code applies only in some other part of the country. I've certainly never heard of it. (And No, we don't have pampas grass in the front garden.)

Visiting the UK office of a US tech company is funny. There’s at least three hierarchies in play:

1) The company one (employee, manager, director, etc.)

2) The UK class system

3) The techie machismo ladder (who is the biggest ninja, 10x, Superman programmer)

They interact in surprising ways. You never know who is going to defer to whom.

Not from the UK, but I grew up watching the British sitcom "Keeping Up Appearances". Reading this reminded me a lot of the main character on the show who was constantly doing things like that to try to signal her class. I always wondered how true that was in the UK.

Well then I guess you're not part of the scene; as applied to you, the secret code still works.