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.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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!
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.
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.
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!
The funny thing is that in the US, a preference for game meat is definitely not a marker of high social class.
It’s genuinely quite fascinating the massive difference in cultural associations with “hunting” in America vs the UK
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.
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.
And what sort of game. I’m southern. Quail or dove hunting reflects a very different status than deer.
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.
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.
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"
Alan Clarke talking about Michael Heseltine IIRC 😂
Right. And Heseltine was what everybody normal would think of us as ultra-posh.
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!
the london neighborhoods question is like eight levels above all the others holy shit
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...)
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.
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.
Now level-up and do inverted snobbery.
Totally delightful and not a little pleased that I got the references well enough to get pass. Now, for that two-bedroom in Battersea… 😂
You forgot about a love of tranny prostitutes and cocaine being an upper class marker
Sociologists have long charted the Tommy Robinson–C-3PO spectrum. It’s GCSE material by now.
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!
Shoreditch. LOL.
Passed with flying colors.