Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior

by Kate Fox

ostensibly

therefore

alleg...

fuss

anthropologist,

ethnographer,

all right

returned to England, at the age of 16, I was obliged

especially one that allows us to indulge in one of our favourite national pastimes: laughing at ourselves.

prompted

soggy,

enigmatic

abstruse

obfuscate

‘dumbing down’

upheavals,

intrepid

Friday custom?’ And on, and on, until you were heartily sick of her. Then she would go and watch and interrogate other people – from different groups within your society – and, hundreds of nosy

bouts

English weather-speak is a form of code, evolved to help us overcome our social inhibitions and

actually talk to each other.