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 theintellectual 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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