English Page 21

  Knock knock! Who’s there? (Macbeth)

  Laid on with a trowel (As You Like It)

  Laughing stock (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

  Laugh yourself into stitches (Twelfth Night)

  Lean and hungry look (Julius Caesar)

  Lie low (Much Ado about Nothing)

  Live long day (Julius Caesar)

  Love is blind (The Merchant of Venice)

  Melted into thin air (The Tempest)

  Make a virtue of necessity (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

  The makings of (Henry VIII)

  Milk of human kindness (Macbeth)

  Ministering angel (Hamlet)

  More in sorrow than in anger (Hamlet)

  More sinned against than sinning (King Lear)

  Much Ado About Nothing (title)

  Murder most foul (Hamlet)

  Naked truth (Love’s Labours Lost)

  Neither rhyme nor reason (As You Like It)

  Not slept one wink (Cymbeline)

  Once more into the breach (Henry V)

  One fell swoop (Macbeth)

  One that loved not wisely but too well (Othello)

  Own flesh and blood (Hamlet)

  Star-crossed lovers (Romeo and Juliet)

  [What] a piece of work [is man] (Hamlet)

  Play fast and loose (King John)

  Pomp and circumstance (Othello)

  Pound of flesh (The Merchant of Venice)

  Salad days (Antony and Cleopatra)

  Sea change (The Tempest)

  Seen better days (As You Like It)

  Send packing (I Henry IV)

  Make short shrift (Richard III)

  Sick at heart (Hamlet)

  Snail paced (Troilus and Cressida)

  Something in the wind (The Comedy of Errors)

  Something wicked this way comes (Macbeth)

  A sorry sight (Macbeth)

  Sound and fury (Macbeth)

  Spotless reputation (Richard II)

  Stony hearted (I Henry IV)

  The short and the long of it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

  Set my teeth on edge (I Henry IV)

  Thereby hangs a tale (Othello; in context, this seems to have been already in use)

  There’s the rub (Hamlet)

  Too much of a good thing (As You Like It)

  Tower of strength (Richard III)

  Truth will out (The Merchant of Venice)

  Wear my heart upon my sleeve (Othello)

  What the dickens (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

  What’s done is done (Macbeth)

  Wild-goose chase (Romeo and Juliet)

  Witching time of night (Hamlet)

  Working-day world (As You Like It)

  The world’s my oyster (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

  Yeoman’s service (Hamlet)

  Where Shakespeare forged the path, dozens of English writers have continued to define through literature the English language and what it means to be English. And in my mind, nowhere is this better displayed than in the books written for our children.

  As a child I grew up on Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and Kenneth Grahame. All of them had the ability to paint a picture of an idyllic England, one of Fair Isle sweaters, dandelion and burdock, green lawns and long idyllic summers. It’s probably not surprising that a nation obsessed with the weather has consumed literature in which existence is a perpetual summer of picnics, sailing, rowing and spiffing adventures. Winnie the Pooh, The Wind in the Willows, Three Men in a Boat, The Famous Five, the tales of Beatrix Potter were all quintessentially English and still conjure a time of simple happiness. For me it was the backdrop of ‘traditional’ or ‘old-fashioned’ England that made them so charming.

  Several years ago, Enid Blyton’s publisher decided to make some ‘sensitive text revisions’ to her classic Famous Five books. So ‘tinker’ was changed to ‘traveller’, ‘mother and father’ to ‘mum and dad’ and ‘awful swotter’ to ‘bookworm’. The suggestion that tomboy George needed ‘a good spanking’ became ‘a good talking to’, while girly Anne’s assertion, ‘You see, I do like pretty frocks – and I love my dolls – and you can’t do that if you’re a boy’ had its final clause removed, rendering the sentence throwaway rather than poignant. Unsurprisingly, given that all the charm had been stripped out of them, the revised editions flopped, and the publisher reverted to the originals, conceding that the updates had proved ‘very unpopular’.

  Of course, our language has gone through many changes. The Oxford English Dictionary has been the Vogue magazine of our language fashion for hundreds of years, and each quarter, the dictionary publishes an update that includes new words and ‘retirees’ – words no longer deemed relevant. The OED, as it is often referred to, is a reflection of Englishness through language.

  Anything new that goes into the dictionary is drafted and researched by a team of fifteen lexicographers on the ‘new word’ team. They work year-round analysing corpuses – basically great big bundles of electronic text collections containing billions of words – online databases as well as submissions from members of the public. The OED waits for ten years of evidence before adding a word to the huge and growing body of English. The quarter ending December 2016 saw around 500 new words, phrases, and senses enter the dictionary, including the following:

  bralette – A tight-fitting crop top with thin straps

  glam-ma – A glamorous grandmother, especially one who is relatively young or fashion-conscious

  gobby – (of a person) tending to talk too loudly and in a blunt or opinionated way

  tombstoning – Jump into the sea from a cliff or other high point

  upstander – A person who speaks or acts in support of an individual or cause, particularly someone who intervenes on behalf of a person being attacked or bullied

  YouTuber – A person who uploads, produces, or appears in videos on the video-sharing website YouTube

  Of course, our language in both written and spoken form has often reflected our obsession with the weather. Just take a look at some of our weather proverbs:

  a bolt from the blue – something that happens unexpectedly

  a ray of sunshine – someone or something that brings great joy

  right as rain – perfect, very good, healthy, correct, factually accurate

  to weather the storm – to reach the end of a very difficult situation without too much harm or damage.

  Inevitably, plenty of expressions that use the weather metaphorically are negative in tone:

  to chase rainbows – to try to accomplish something that can never be achieved, to go on a useless quest

  dry spell – a period or time where there is little activity, productivity, low income, etc.

  to have one’s head in the clouds – when someone has unrealistic or impractical ideas

  under a cloud – in trouble or difficulties; out of favour

  under the weather – not feeling well

  ‘Ee ba gum’. ‘My lover.’ ‘Gan canny.’ ‘Ey oop’. ‘Awlraght’. Our nation’s language is made up of so many regional dialects. I have spent time in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire where I haven’t had a clue what has been said. Within the geographical boundaries of England today, the English language is spoken in nearly thirty dialects, a form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group. No other nation in the world can boast so many variations on the same language.

  Northern dialects include Cheshire, Cumbrian (including Barrovian in Barrow-in-Furness), Geordie (Tyneside), Hartlepudlian (Hartlepool), Lancastrian (Lancashire), Mackem (Sunderland), Mancunian (Manchester), Northumbrian (rural Northumberland), Pitmatic (Durham and Northumberland), Scouse (Liverpool), Smoggie (Teesside) and Yorkshire (also known as Broad Yorkshire). In the Midlands, you have dialects particular to East Midlands and West Midlands, and most notably Black Country, Brummie (Birmingham), Potteries (north Staffordshire) and Telford (east Shropshire).

  In East Anglia, the dialect shifts between Norfolk and Suffolk. In
the south, you have Received Pronunciation (RP or BBC English), Cockney (working-class London and surrounding areas), Essaxon (Essex), Estuary (Thames Estuary), Kentish (Kent), Multicultural London (London) and Sussex. The West Country has a recognizable variety of languages and accents, with Anglo-Cornish and Bristolian distinctly different again.

  When I was in the Royal Naval Reserve I became fascinated by yet another dialect, Jackspeak. This is the humorous and colourful slang of the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines and the Fleet Air Arm. The Royal Navy has a heritage all of its own: a cryptic everyday lingo. Mysterious, fascinating and a closed book to the most erudite civilian …

  Jackspeak is constantly refreshed, just like the OED’s huge database, and is also influenced by current events. Although much of the naval slang is old, there are many modern examples. You can hear sailors talking about ‘Dagenham Dave’ (an unstable person – just this side of Barking, London) or someone ‘going Harpic’ (clean round the bend). Here are a few more of my favourites:

  the cat is out of the bag – ‘The secret is out’. It comes from keeping the cat o’ nine tails (a naval whip with nine chords to flog miscreants) in a red bag. Only when the naughty sailor was tied up ready to be flogged was the ‘cat’ removed from the bag.

  the cut of his jib – a person’s facial appearance. A long time ago, a ship’s nationality could be told at a distance by the shape of one of her sails (the jib) at the front of the boat.

  touch and go – uncertainty. It refers to a ship touching the sea-bottom and then slipping off, i.e. not running aground.

  Arguably the most famous ‘slang’ dialect is Cockney rhyming slang, in which words are replaced by other words or phrases they rhyme with. It dates back to the mid-1800s and originated in the East End of London. No one really knows how or why it came about, but there are plenty of theories. One suggestion is that its use became popular in the marketplace to allow traders to talk amongst themselves without customers knowing what they were saying. Another suggestion is that it may have been used by criminals to confuse the police.

  Some of the associations are ingenious though. For example, ‘bees and honey’ means money. Bees are seen as very hard-working and hard work brings money; having money is sweet – just like honey.

  The English language has spread far and wide. Wherever it settles it adapts to the local conditions and local people. One of the most intriguing places I have ever been was Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific, the home of the mutineers from the Bounty. Today the island language, Pitkern or Pitcairnese, continues to use many expressions no longer in use in modern English, as the language on this isolated atoll in the middle of the Pacific has been frozen in time. I travelled there to research my first book, The Teatime Islands, a travelogue to Britain’s last remaining outposts, the last pink bits of the Empire. It took me the best part of two weeks to sail from Tahiti to the remote and mysterious British Overseas Territory. When I arrived, it was fascinating to listen to what was being said and try to work out what it meant.

  Here are some common phrases:

  Whata way yee? – How are you?

  About yee gwen? – Where are you going?

  You gwen whihi up supa? – Are you going to cook supper?

  I nor believe – I don’t think so

  Yee like-a sum whettles? – Would you like some food?

  Do’ mine – It doesn’t matter. I don’t mind

  Wa sing yourley doing? – What are you doing? What are you up to?

  I se gwen ah big shep – I’m going to the ship

  Humuch shep corl ya? – How often do ships come here?

  Cum yorley sulluns! – Come on all you kids!

  I se gwen ah nahweh – I’m going swimming

  Lebbe! – Let it be!

  Cooshoo! – Good!

  English, our language, is an amazing invention and an amazing tool. Perhaps it’s our greatest gift to the world. We, as users, are endlessly inventive and it’s difficult to know whether the language allows us to be that creative or whether it comes from our peculiar mindset. Whichever way it is, English seems set fair to thrive in the decades to come. We seem to have no problem at all coming up with and then adopting new words. In this great tradition I should like to present to you my own word (combining ‘English’ and ‘angst’) to be added to the great lexicon of the English language:

  Engst – the complex of being English

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TEA AND SYMPATHY

  Betty’s Tea Room in Harrogate is an institution.

  It is an English phenomenon. People make pilgrimages to this Mecca of tea rooms. Fortnum & Masons or the Ritz are also-rans when it comes to the quintessential afternoon tea. I first visited Betty’s when I was a small boy and my parents took us on a holiday to North Yorkshire. Even then, I was struck by its essence of Englishness.

  For nearly 100 years Betty’s has been a Yorkshire landmark. It was founded in 1919 by Swiss-born Frederick Belmont, who had trained in confectionery-making and baking, after he settled in Yorkshire. Where he got the name nobody knows, although there is speculation it was from Betty Lupton, a local girl who served the town’s famous spa water to visitors; others suggest it might have been the Victorian actress Betty Balfour. While the provenance of the name will probably never be known, Betty’s was a huge success and there are now six Betty’s tea rooms across Yorkshire; but it is the Harrogate Betty’s that revels in world acclaim and to which people flock from all over the world.

  When Anna, 7th Duchess of Bedford, started taking tea and sandwiches between lunch and dinner in the 1840s, she began one of our most delightful traditions. Soon she was joined by her friends at Woburn Abbey, and this afternoon pause for tea became a fashionably social event. During the 1800s, upper-class and society women would change into long gowns, gloves and hats for tea, which was traditionally served in the drawing room between four and five o’clock. By Edwardian times, afternoon tea, served in the finest china and silverware, had become a byword for sophisticated and elegant gatherings.

  There is some confusion between high tea and afternoon tea. High tea was the main meal of the day for the working class (which is why many still refer to their evening meal – supper – as tea). It originated during the industrial revolution for workers who returned home after a long day’s physical work and needed a hot, hearty meal. It was called ‘high’ tea to differentiate it from the ‘low’ afternoon tea. Confused? I was about to be. In the spirit of immersion, I decided to join staff for an afternoon serving tea and scones to the genteel folk of North Yorkshire.

  The tea queue stretched around the corner. Can there be two more beautiful words to the English ear than ‘tea’ and ‘queue’? Here the two happily link as patient devotees wait their turn to be seated. Betty’s has gained a worldwide reputation for the finest afternoon tea, and no list of things to do in Yorkshire is complete without reference to the iconic tea rooms.

  In the staff room I changed into my Betty’s uniform: black trousers and waistcoat, white shirt and maroon tie. I joined the other staff in the bustling kitchen where a chef was busy preparing for the 1 p.m. sitting in the grandly named Imperial Room. ‘Tarragon sandwich, egg sandwich and Yorkshire ham sandwich,’ explained Jen, pointing to the three-tier sterling silver afternoon tea stands.

  On the next level were the scones. ‘Sc-ons or sc-oans?’ I asked.

  ‘Sc-ons,’ she smiled.

  ‘Which first? The clotted cream or the jam?’ I added.

  ‘It’s down to taste, but I think the clotted cream makes a fantastic base for the jam to sit,’ she explained.

  On the third tier was a dizzying array of tiny cakes. I could recognize a Battenberg and a meringue but the rest I’d have to leave to Mary Berry.

  Next she introduced me to the huge choice of teas. ‘These are the most popular, afternoon tea and Tea Room tea. Then there is the Assam, Lapsang Souchong, Pure Ceylon, Betty’s Blue Sapphire, Gunpowder …’ Her words disappeared in a caffeinated blur. ‘It’s
loose tea, of course,’ she added. ‘All the teas have a different brewing time of between three and five minutes,’ she explained.

  ‘Which should you pour first? The tea or the milk?’

  ‘Well,’ Jen replied diplomatically, ‘there is no right or wrong. But the customer is always right.’

  When tea was at its most popular, it became practical to pour a little cold milk into the cheaper china cups to prevent them from cracking when the warm tea was added. Essentially it became a class division between those who could afford the more expensive, non-crackable bone china who added milk after, and the working class who added milk first. Only in England could the consumption of tea become a battleground of social etiquette and class.

  And with that, I had been given my tutorial. Now it was time to meet my customers. ‘Don’t forget this,’ smiled Jack, handing me an apron that I tied around my waist.

  ‘Tuck in the ends,’ added Jen.

  The room was already full. There were a few tables of couples and several of groups. While the afternoon tea ceremony appeals to many for special occasions (including, surprisingly, hen and stag dos), there are plenty of regulars who have been coming daily for years. While afternoon tea has remained a popular ritual, places like Betty’s have had to keep up with the times and most now include the option of a glass of champagne to accompany the sandwiches and tea which is of course served on the finest bone china from the Royal Crown Derby.

  I had a table of six women. They looked to be in their forties, and it turned out they were celebrating a birthday. At twenty-one and thirty years old respectively, Jen and Jack looked a little, ahem, younger than most of those enjoying afternoon tea. Jack had been working in the tea rooms since he was sixteen. That is almost half his life.

  I walked to the first table. ‘Good afternoon. Lovely weather,’ I added for extra Englishness before taking their order.

  Tea and weather. Two of my favourite topics in one greeting.

  In the corner, a pianist, the same one who has performed in this hallowed tea room for decades, quietly played on the keys to accompany the gentle tinkle of bone china cups meeting their saucers. Tea flowed and scones were gently spread with clotted cream. The jam, or rather ‘preserve’, is specially produced and has a bespoke consistency to complement the rose and lemon scones. You cannot underestimate the evocative power of that sound of cup on saucer. It reminds me of my late grandmother. It is a soothing, calming, stabilizing sound. There is something terribly reassuring about tea.