22 Comments
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Pete McCutchen's avatar

The funny thing is that in the US, a preference for game meat is definitely not a marker of high social class.

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Natalya Lobanova's avatar

It’s genuinely quite fascinating the massive difference in cultural associations with “hunting” in America vs the UK

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Pete McCutchen's avatar

Don’t the Brits have a lot of complicated neo-aristocratic rules about who can hunt where? We do have rules, but they’re mostly about private property and herd management. In the US, if you can afford a tag, it’s pretty likely you can find a place to hunt. I have deer and wild turkey wander through my yard, and while I’d be subject to bag limits, I could hunt them from my deck.

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cowboykiller's avatar

That depends on where you live. Rural US? Hunting means you can't afford the store, negative connotation. NYC or West Coast? You've got money but probably the wrong political opinions, negative connotation? Any big city in the Sunbelt? Definitely upper middle class. Dallas or Houston? Top of the food chain, your family either has had oil since Spindletop or your last name is Walton.

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Dystopian Housewife's avatar

And what sort of game. I’m southern. Quail or dove hunting reflects a very different status than deer.

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Robert Smith's avatar

I am a very middle-class American, know nothing about the British class system, and I found this hilarious. Now I know just enough to thoroughly embarrass myself at London gatherings which I would never be invited to anyway.

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Susan Coyne's avatar

Note that the use of “middle class” means something different in England! (Am American, lived in England). Middle class in England means that your family has been comfortable for a few generations and probably have decently posh accents. Guardian readers. The kind of people who’ve been to Thailand.

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KeepingByzzy's avatar

Whenever I need to explain to Americans what aristocracy means, I tell them of the one old-school Tory who said of one of Thatcher's ministers, "he is of the sort that had to buy all of his own furniture"

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David's avatar

Alan Clarke talking about Michael Heseltine IIRC 😂

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Colin Rosenthal's avatar

Right. And Heseltine was what everybody normal would think of us as ultra-posh.

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AntifragileADHD's avatar

Doing a degree in law rather than a conversation course is 100% a red flag.

But a career in law (teeth cutring, K.C. then judge) is expected if you are intelligent enough to pursue it.

Control of the judiciary (and gatekeeping learned'ness from the majority of the proles - see the peasants revolt) is the way the decendents of the mates of William the 1st have maintained their positions.

Very good article, you are a great writer and clearly get it!

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Shabby Tigers's avatar

the london neighborhoods question is like eight levels above all the others holy shit

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Anonymous Dude's avatar

True neutral? That's not merely American, that comes from Dungeons & Dragons.

(Seriously, fun. I wound up mostly yellow, and I'm not even a Brit...)

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Snezhanna's avatar

That was hilarious, incredibly witty writing! I’m also an immigrant from an ex Soviet country, and navigating the complexities of class in the UK has been fun. What fascinates me is that they can tell immediately by how you sound - it’s such an intricate nuanced social position.

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Esme Fae's avatar

I did surprisingly well on this (although I had no idea for the London neighborhoods) for someone who comes from ethnic steelworkers on one side and Appalachian hillbillies on the other. I think it’s because I grew up in a town with a lot of New England old money types, so I knew a backyard reception at your family’s house (aka estate), majoring in French philosophy and not buying new furniture ever are upper-class things.

In the US, having a taste for game meat is definitely a lower class/redneck trait; but I had read enough Agatha Christie books to realize that in England only the upper class hunts.

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Christopher Taylor's avatar

Now level-up and do inverted snobbery.

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Susan Coyne's avatar

Totally delightful and not a little pleased that I got the references well enough to get pass. Now, for that two-bedroom in Battersea… 😂

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George Apley's avatar

You forgot about a love of tranny prostitutes and cocaine being an upper class marker

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The Spiked Quill's avatar

Sociologists have long charted the Tommy Robinson–C-3PO spectrum. It’s GCSE material by now.

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Gabi's avatar

Latin American immigrant living in the US here and somehow I got all the greens - I guess somewhere in my mutt heritage I have highly diluted blue blood!

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Iain M Norman's avatar

Shoreditch. LOL.

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Patrick Henry Morgan's avatar

Passed with flying colors.

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