For years Richard Hoggart has observed the oddity of a common
speech habit: the fondness for employing ready-made sayings and
phrasings whenever we open our mouths, a disinclination to form our
own sentences "from scratch," unless that becomes inescapable. But
in this book he is interested in more specific questions. How far
do the British, and particularly the English, share the same
sayings across the social classes? If each group uses some
different ones, are those differences determined by location, age,
occupation or place in the social scale? Over the years, did such
sayings indicate some of the main lines of their culture, its basic
conditions, its stresses and strains, its indications of meaning,
and significance? These and other concerns animate this fascinating
exploration of how the English, and particularly working-class
English, use the English language.Hoggart sets the stage by
explaining how he has approached his subject matter, his manner of
inquiry, and the general characteristics of sayings and speech.
Looking back into time, he explores the idioms and epigrams in the
poverty setting of the early working-class English. Hoggart
examines the very innards of working-class life and the idioms,
with the language that arose in relation to home, with its main
characters of wives and mothers, husbands and fathers, and
children; the wars; marriage; food, drink, health, and weather;
neighbors, gossip, quarrels, old age, and death. He discusses
related idioms and epigrams and their evolution from prewar to
present.Hoggart identifies the sayings and special nuances of the
English working-class people that have made them identifiable as
such, from the rude and obscene to the intellectual and
imaginative. Hoggart also examines the areas of tolerance, local
morality, and public morality, elaborating on current usage of
words that have evolved from the fourteen through the eighteenth
centuries. He touches on religion, superstition, and time, the
beliefs that animate language. And finally, he focuses on aphorisms
and social change and the emerging idioms of relativism, concluding
that many early adages still in use seem to refuse to die.With
inimitable verve and humor, Hoggart offers adages, apothegms,
epigrams and the like in this colorful examination drawn from the
national pool and the common culture. This volume will interest
scholars and general readers interested in culture studies,
communications, and education.
General
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