Just when I was thinking I was about to complete the weekend without finding anything whatsoever interesting enough to post about, the NYT comes to the rescue with this story, which seeks to answer the age-old question: Are Brits really wittier than Americans, or do they just sound that way? If they just sound that way, what is it about their dialect that does it?
NO sooner had her words been reported in the British newspapers then she frantically took them back, saying that she had been misunderstood and misquoted. But the question remains: was Gwyneth Paltrow on to something when she noted (or didn’t) that “the British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans,†and that “people here don’t talk about work and money; they talk about interesting things at dinner�
Whether Britons are objectively cleverer and more amusing than Americans, or whether they just sound that way, is one of the deep mysteries of British life for expatriates like Ms. Paltrow, who lives in London with her husband, the British rock star Chris Martin, and their children, Apple and Moses.
Britons seem to have the advantage of accent: their exotic pronunciation can make even dubious observation sound like unimpeachable truth. They are also experts at the art of speaking coherently and with authority on topics they know little or nothing about. “Every Englishman can talk for 15 minutes on any subject without a note,†Norman Mailer has been quoted as saying.
Aside from the linguistic things, it’s noted that British dinner parties (referring above to Paltrow’s comment) include copious amounts of alcohol that many American dinner parties do not; this surely affects both the fluidity of conversation and the likelihood that attendees may view it as more “interesting.” But there are also social norms that have an impact: apparently Britons think it rude to talk about work, for fear of alienating anyone, so it’s not just that they have more “interesting” things they want to talk about. And, Britons aren’t afraid of confrontation in ways Americans are; hence the House of Commons shouting matches all Americans love - hence perhaps also why I appreciate BBC interviews with political figures for their quadrupled candor compared to American broadcasters.
But then we come to the Brits’ appreciation for “conversation” as an “art form.” This is something that’s come up a lot the past few years (and probably before; I just started noticing it), and I’ve noticed it partly in relation to perceived decreases in valuable conversation due to the internet. These observations frustrate me, because I simply don’t see this as the case. Or maybe I’m just not sure what definition of “conversation” is being used such that Americans’ interaction doesn’t achieve it, or Americans don’t value it. It just seems like another one of those “things were better before television” sort of claims, which isn’t founded on any real phenomena.
OK, so the article didn’t actually probe any more into the British English issue, which is what I was looking forward to. There’s probably a host of studies somewhere I’m not conversant with, which discuss this very issue of how British English comes to be so iconic of positively valued traits like cleverness, intelligence, and authority. But I have other studies to talk to now, so I must leave this topic for now. Bollocks, I know.
