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Finally, I hesitate ever to underestimate the importance of class in British society. I wouldn’t be surprised if the English (at least) middle classes self-imposed a regime of manners that was influenced by (perceived) upper-class norms during their attempts to climb into social prominence, after having been perceived as noisy/gauche, so that such norms might have been transmitted more effectively from a small dominant group than actual speech patterns, which rely on face-to-face interaction (at least, then). This doesnt seem likely to me. It is not probable that the middle classes would have perceived the upper-clss norms so inaccurately. It's much more likely to be to do with working-class solidarity, collectivism and an egalitarian ideology*, which is also what seems to me to be behind the Australasian "tall poppy" syndrome and the corresponding Scandinavian "Janteloven" - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jante_Law. *(Stephen Fry reckons that the British class system actually has the consequence that no one is actually supposed to behave as if they were any better than anybody else.) ######################################################################## The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics. To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe from the VAR-L list, click the following link: http://jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=VAR-L&A=1