How to be a Brit

by George Mikes

  Many continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a game.

  Introduction

  This is a chapter on how to introduce people to one another.

  The aim of introduction is to conceal a person’s identity. It is very important that you should not pronounce anybody’s name in a way that the other party may be able to catch it. Generally speaking, your pronunciation is a sound guarantee for that. On the other hand, if you are introduced to someone there are two important rules to follow.

  1. If he stretches out his hand in order to shake yours, you must not accept it. Smile vaguely, and as soon as he gives up the hope of shaking you by the hand, you stretch out your own hand and try to catch his in vain. This game is repeated until the greater part of the afternoon or evening has elapsed. It is extremely likely that this will be the most amusing part of the afternoon or evening, anyway.

  2. Once the introduction has been made you have to enquire after the health of your new acquaintance.

  Try the thing in your own language. Introduce the persons, let us say, in French and murmur their names. Should they shake hands and ask:

  ‘Comment allez-vous?’

  ‘Comment allez-vous?’ – it will be a capital joke, remembered till their last days.

  Do not forget, however, that your new friend who makes this touchingly kind enquiry after your state of health does not care in the least whether you are well and kicking or dying of delirium tremens. A dialogue like this:

  HE: How d’you do?

  YOU: General state of health fairly satisfactory. Slight insomnia and a rather bad corn on left foot. Blood pressure low, digestion slow but normal.

  – well, such a dialogue would be unforgivable.

  In the next phase you must not say ‘Pleased to meet you.’ This is one of the very few lies you must never utter because, for some unknown reason, it is considered vulgar. You must not say ‘Pleased to meet you,’ even if you are definitely disgusted with the man.

  A few general remarks:

  1. Do not click your heels, do not bow, leave off gymnastic and choreographic exercises altogether for the moment.

  2. Do not call foreign lawyers, teachers, dentists, commercial travellers and estate agents ‘Doctor’. Everybody knows that the little word ‘doctor’ only means that they are Central Europeans. This is painful enough in itself, you do not need to remind people of it all the time.

  Which hand will you have?

  The Weather

  This is the most important topic in the land. Do not be misled by memories of your youth when, on the Continent, wanting to describe someone as exceptionally dull, you remarked: ‘He is the type who would discuss the weather with you.’ In England this is an ever-interesting, even thrilling topic, and you must be good at discussing the weather.

  EXAMPLES FOR CONVERSATION

  For Good Weather

  ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

  ‘The sun …’

  ‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’

  ‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s so nice and hot …’

  ‘Personally, I think it’s so nice when it’s hot– isn’t it?’

  ‘I adore it – don’t you?’

  For Bad Weather

  ‘Nasty day, isn’t it?’

  ‘Isn’t it dreadful?’

  ‘The rain … I hate rain …’

  ‘I don’t like it at all. Do you?’

  ‘Fancy such a day in July. Rain in the morning, then a bit of sunshine, and then rain, rain, rain, all day long.’

  ‘I remember exactly the same July day in 1936.’

  ‘Yes, I remember too.’

  ‘Or was it in 1928?’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘Or in 1939?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Good afternoon!’

  Now observe the last few sentences of this conversation. A very important rule emerges from it. You must never contradict anybody when discussing the weather. Should it hail and snow, should hurricanes uproot the trees from the sides of the road, and should someone remark to you: ‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ – answer without hesitation: ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

  Learn the above conversation by heart. If you are a bit slow in picking things up, learn at least one conversation, it would do wonderfully for any occasion.

  If you do not say anything else for the rest of your life, just repeat this conversation, you still have a fair chance of passing as a remarkably witty man of sharp intellect, keen observation and extremely pleasant manners.

  English society is a class society, strictly organized almost on corporative lines. If you doubt this, listen to the weather forecasts. There is always a different weather forecast for farmers. You often hear statements like this on the radio:

  ‘To-morrow it will be cold, cloudy and foggy; long periods of rain will be interrupted by short periods of showers.’

  And then:

  ‘Weather forecast for farmers. It will be fair and warm, many hours of sunshine.’

  You must not forget that the farmers do grand work of national importance and deserve better weather.

  It happened on innumerable occasions that nice, warm weather had been forecast and rain and snow fell all day long, or vice versa. Some people jumped rashly to the conclusion that something must be wrong with the weather forecasts. They are mistaken and should be more careful with their allegations.

  I have read an article in one of the Sunday papers and now I can tell you what the situation really is. All troubles are caused by anti-cyclones. (I don’t quite know what anti-cyclones are, but this is not important; I hate cyclones and am very anti-cyclone myself.) The two naughtiest anti-cyclones are the Azores and the Polar anti-cyclones.

  The British meteorologists forecast the right weather – as it really should be – and then these impertinent little anti-cyclones interfere and mess up everything.

  That again proves that if the British kept to themselves and did not mix with foreign things like Polar and Azores anti-cyclones they would be much better off.

  Soul and Understatement

  Foreigners have souls; the English haven’t.

  On the Continent you find any amount of people who sigh deeply for no conspicuous reason, yearn, suffer and look in the air extremely sadly. This is soul.

  The worst kind of soul is the great Slav soul. People who suffer from it are usually very deep thinkers. They may say things like this: ‘Sometimes I am so merry and sometimes I am so sad. Can you explain why?’ (You cannot, do not try.) Or they may say: ‘I am so mysterious … I sometimes wish I were somewhere else than where I am.’ (Do not say: ‘I wish you were.’) Or ‘When I am alone in a forest at night-time and jump from one tree to another, I often think that life is so strange.’

  All this is very deep: and just soul, nothing else.

  The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.

  If a continental youth wants to declare his love to a girl, he kneels down, tells her that she is the sweetest, the most charming and ravishing person in the world, that she has something in her, something peculiar and individual which only a few hundred thousand other women have and that he would be unable to live one more minute without her. Often, to give a little more emphasis to the statement, he shoots himself on the spot. This is a normal, week-day declaration of love in the more temperamental continental countries. In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says softly: ‘I don’t object to you, you know.’ If he is quite mad with passion, he may add: ‘I rather fancy you, in fact.’

  If he wants to marry a girl, he says:

  ‘My soul is all an Aching Void’ – John Wesley

  ‘I say … would you? …’

  If he wants to make an indecent proposal:

  ‘I say … what about …’

  Overstatement, too, plays a considerable part in English social life. This takes mostly the form of someone remar
king: ‘I say …’ and then keeping silent for three days on end.

  Tea

  The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink.

  So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it.

  To the eternal glory of British science their labour bore fruit. They suggested that if you do not drink it clear, or with lemon or rum and sugar, but pour a few drops of cold milk into it, and no sugar at all, the desired object is achieved. Once this refreshing, aromatic, oriental beverage was successfully transformed into colourless and tasteless gargling-water, it suddenly became the national drink of Great Britain and Ireland – still retaining, indeed usurping, the high-sounding title of tea.

  There are some occasions when you must not refuse a cup of tea, otherwise you are judged an exotic and barbarous bird without any hope of ever being able to take your place in civilized society.

  If you are invited to an English home, at five o’clock in the morning you get a cup of tea. It is either brought in by a heartily smiling hostess or an almost malevolently silent maid. When you are disturbed in your sweetest morning sleep you must not say: ‘Madame (or Mabel), I think you are a cruel, spiteful and malignant person who deserves to be shot.’ On the contrary, you have to declare with your best five o’clock smile: ‘Thank you so much. I do adore a cup of early morning tea, especially early in the morning.’ If they leave you alone with the liquid, you may pour it down the washbasin.

  Then you have tea for breakfast; then you have tea at eleven o’clock in the morning; then after lunch; then you have tea for tea; then after supper; and again at eleven o’clock at night.

  The cup that cheers

  You must not refuse any additional cups of tea under the following circumstances: if it is hot; if it is cold; if you are tired; if anybody thinks that you might be tired; if you are nervous; if you are gay; before you go out; if you are out; if you have just returned home; if you feel like it; if you do not feel like it; if you have had no tea for some time; if you have just had a cup.

  You definitely must not follow my example. I sleep at five o’clock in the morning; I have coffee for breakfast; I drink innumerable cups of black coffee during the day; I have the most unorthodox and exotic teas even at tea-time.

  The other day, for instance – I just mention this as a terrifying example to show you how low some people can sink – I wanted a cup of coffee and a piece of cheese for tea. It was one of those exceptionally hot days and my wife (once a good Englishwoman, now completely and hopelessly led astray by my wicked foreign influence) made some cold coffee and put it in the refrigerator, where it froze and became one solid block. On the other hand, she left the cheese on the kitchen table, where it melted. So I had a piece of coffee and a glass of cheese.

  Sex

  Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles.

  A word on Some Publishers

  I heard of a distinguished, pure-minded English publisher who adapted John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, so skilfully that it became a charming little family book on grapes and other fruits, with many illustrations.

  On the other hand, a continental publisher in London had a French political book, The Popular Front, translated into English. It became an exciting, pornographic book, called The Popular Behind.

  The Language

  When I arrived in England I thought I knew English. After I’d been here an hour I realized that I did not understand one word. In the first week I picked up a tolerable working knowledge of the language and the the next seven years convinced me gradually but thoroughly that I would never know it really well, let alone perfectly. This is sad. My only consolation being that nobody speaks English perfectly.

  Remember that those five hundred words an average Englishman uses are far from being the whole vocabulary of the language. You may learn another five hundred and another five thousand and yet another fifty thousand and still you may come across a further fifty thousand you have never heard of before, and nobody else either.

  If you live here long enough you will find out to your greatest amazement that the adjective nice is not the only adjective the language possesses, in spite of the fact that in the first three years you do not need to learn or use any other adjectives. You can say that the weather is nice, a restaurant is nice, Mr Soandso is nice, Mrs Soandso’s clothes are nice, you had a nice time, and all this will be very nice.

  Then you have to decide on your accent. You will have your foreign accent all right, but many people like to mix it with something else. I knew a Polish Jew who had a strong Yiddish-Irish accent. People found it fascinating though slightly exaggerated. The easiest way to give the impression of having a good accent or no foreign accent at all is to hold an unlit pipe in your mouth, to mutter between your teeth and finish all your sentences with the question: ‘isn’t it?’ People will not understand much, but they are accustomed to that and they will get a most excellent impression.

  I have known quite a number of foreigners who tried hard to acquire an Oxford accent. The advantage of this is that you give the idea of being permanently in the company of Oxford dons and lecturers on medieval numismatics; the disadvantage is that the permanent singing is rather a strain on your throat and that it is a type of affection that even many English people find it hard to keep up incessantly. You may fall out of it, speak naturally, and then where are you?

  The Mayfair accent can be highly recommended, too. The advantages of Mayfair English are that it unites the affected air of the Oxford accent with the uncultured flavour of a half-educated professional hotel-dancer.

  The most successful attempts, however, to put on a highly cultured air have been made on the polysyllabic lines. Many foreigners who have learnt Latin and Greek in school discover with amazement and satisfaction that the English language has absorbed a huge amount of ancient Latin and Greek expressions, and they realize that (a) it is much easier to learn these expressions than the much simpler English words; (b) that these words as a rule are interminably long and make a simply superb impression when talking to the greengrocer, the porter and the insurance agent.

  Imagine, for instance, that the porter of the block of flats where you live remarks sharply that you must not put your dustbin out in front of your door before 7.30 a.m. Should you answer ‘Please don’t bully me,’ a loud and tiresome argument may follow, and certainly the porter will be proved right, because you are sure to find a clause in your contract (small print, bottom of last page) that the porter is always right and you owe absolute allegiance and unconditional obedience to him. Should you answer, however, with these words: ‘I repudiate your petulant expostulations,’ the argument will be closed at once, the porter will be proud of having such a highly cultured man in the block, and from that day onwards you may, if you please, get up at four o’clock in the morning and hang your dustbin out of the window.

  The pipe trick

  But even in Curzon Street society, if you say, for instance, that you are a tough guy they will consider you a vulgar, irritating and objectionable person. Should you declare, however, that you are an inquisitorial and peremptory homo sapiens, they will have no idea what you mean, but they will feel in their bones that you must be something wonderful.

  When you know all the long words it is advisable to start learning some of the short ones, too.

  You should be careful when using these endless words. An acquaintance of mine once was fortunate enough to discover the most impressive word notalgia for back-ache. Mistakenly, however, he declared in a large company:

  ‘I have such a nostalgia.’

  ‘Oh, you want to go home to Nizhne-Novgorod?’ asked his most sympathetic hostess.

  ‘Not at all,’ he answered. ‘I just cannot sit down.’

  Finally, there are two important points to remember:

  1. Do not forget that it is much easier to write in English than to sp
eak English, because you can write without a foreign accent.

  2. In a bus and in other public places it is more advisable to speak softly in good German than to shout in abominable English.

  Anyway, this whole language business is not at all easy. After spending eight years in this country, the other day I was told by a very kind lady: ‘But why do you complain? You really speak a most excellent accent without the slightest English.’

  How Not to be Clever

  ‘You foreigners are so clever,’ said a lady to me some years ago. First, thinking of the great amount of foreign idiots and half-wits I had had the honour of meeting, I considered this remark exaggerated but complimentary.

  Since then I have learnt that it was far from it. These few words expressed the lady’s contempt and slight disgust for foreigners.

  If you look up the word clever in any English dictionary, you will find that the dictionaries are out of date and mislead you on this point. According to the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, for instance, the word means quick and neat in movement … skilful, talented, ingenious. Nuttall’s Dictionary gives these meanings: dexterous, skilful, ingenious, quick or ready-witted, intelligent. All nice adjectives, expressing valuable and estimable characteristics. A modern Englishman, however, uses the word clever in the sense: shrewd, sly, furtive, surreptitious, treacherous, sneaking, crafty, un-English, un-Scottish, un-Welsh.

  In England it is bad manners to be clever, to assert something confidently. It may be your own personal view that two and two make four, but you must not state it in a self-assured way, because this is a democratic country and others may be of a different opinion.