U and non-U English

The discussion was set in motion in 1954 by the British linguist Alan S. C. Ross, professor of linguistics in the University of Birmingham. He coined the terms "U" and "non-U" in an article on the differences social class makes in English language usage, published in a Finnish professional linguistics journal. Though his article included differences in pronunciation and writing styles, it was his remark about differences of vocabulary that received the most attention.

The upper class English author Nancy Mitford was alerted and immediately took up the usage in an essay, "The English Aristocracy", which Stephen Spender published in his magazine Encounter in 1954. Mitford provided a glossary of terms used by the upper classes (some appear in the table), unleashing an anxious national debate about English class-consciousness and snobbery, which involved a good deal of soul-searching that itself provided fuel for the fires. The essay was reprinted, with contributions by Evelyn Waugh, John Betjeman, and others, as well as a "condensed and simplified version"Mitford, Nancy (ed.). 1956. Noblesse oblige. London, Hamish Hamilton, 'Note'. of Ross's original article, as Noblesse Oblige: an Enquiry into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English AristocracyMitford, Nancy (ed.). 1956. Noblesse oblige. London, Hamish Hamilton. in 1956. Betjeman's poem "How to Get On in Society" concluded the collection.

The issue of U and non-U could have been taken lightheartedly, but at the time many took it very seriously. This was a reflection of the anxieties of the middle class in Britain of the 1950s, recently emerged from post-war austerities. In particular the media used it as a launch pad for many stories, making much more out of it than was first intended. In the meantime, the idea that one might "improve oneself" by adopting the culture and manner of one's "betters", instinctively assented to before World War II, was now greeted with resentment.Buckle, Richard (ed.). 1978. U and Non-U Revisited. London: Debrett.

Some of the terms and the ideas behind them were largely obsolete by the late 20th century, when, in the United Kingdom, reverse snobbery led younger members of the British upper and middle classes to adopt elements of working class speech, such as Estuary English or Mockney.Fox, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour, pp. 75–76: "Terminology Rules – U and Non-U Revisited". By the 2020s, many of the words studied by Mitford had ceased to reliably signal social class.{{Cite web |last=Whipple |first=Tom |date=2024-10-24 |title=What would Nancy Mitford say? U and Non-U words lose their power |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/what-would-nancy-mitford-say-u-and-non-u-words-lose-their-power-t0ftffdnp |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=The Times |language=en}}

A study in 1940 on the speaking differences between the American upper and middle classes revealed a strong similarity with the results of Ross's research. For instance, the American upper class said 'curtains', whilst the middle class used 'drapes'. Notably, the well-heeled would use 'toilet' whereas the less well-heeled would say 'lavatory', an inversion of the British usage.{{cite book |last1=Baltzell |first1=E. Digby |title=The Philadelphia Gentlemen |date=1958 |publisher=Large Print Transaction |location=New Brunswick|pages=50–51 |isbn=9781412830751 |edition=1989 |url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=B1QAMx2idG0C&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA50.w.1.0.341}}

• Shibboleth
• Countersignalling

{{reflist|2}}

• Mitford, Nancy (ed.). Noblesse oblige. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1956. Reprinted Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2002, {{ISBN|0-19-860520-X}}.
• Fox, Kate. Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2004. {{ISBN|0-340-81885-9}}
• Cooper, Jilly. Class. Corgi Adult, 1999. {{ISBN|978-0-552-14662-3}}
• Alan S C Ross. How to pronounce it. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1970. SBN 241 01967 2
• Alan S C Ross. Don't say it. Hamish Hamilton 1973, {{ISBN|978-0241024263}}
• Charlotte Mosley (ed.) The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh. Hodder, London, 1996, at pp. 297–394. {{ISBN|0-340-63804-4}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20150415113336/http://www.helsinki.fi/jarj/ufy/24991_s113_150Ross.pdf Ross, Alan S. C., Linguistic class-indicators in present-day English (6.15 MB PDF)]

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Category:Sociolinguistics

Category:Social class in the United Kingdom

Category:Human communication

Category:English language

Category:1950s in the United Kingdom