How To Be An Alien

A Warning To Beginners

In England 1, everything is the other way round.

On Sundays on the Continent even the poorest person puts on his best suit, tries to look respectable, and at the same time the life of the country becomes gay and cheerful; in England even the richest peer or motor-manufacturer dresses in some peculiar rags, does not shave, and the country becomes dull and dreary. On the Continent there is one topic which should be avoided — the weather; in England, if you do not repeat the phrase “Lovely day, isn't it?” at least two hundred times a day, you are considered a bit dull. On the Continent Sunday papers appear on Monday; in England — a country of exotic oddities — they appear on Sunday. On the Continent people use a fork as though a fork were a shovel; in England they turn it upside down and push everything — including peas — on top of it.

On a continental bus approaching a request-stop the conductor rings the bell if he wants the bus to go on without stopping; in England you ring the bell if you want the bus to stop. On the Continent stray cats are judged individually on their merit — some are loved, some are only respected; in England they are universally worshipped as in ancient Egypt. On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.

On the Continent public orators try to learn to speak fluently and smoothly; in England they take a special course in Oxonian stuttering. On the Continent learned persons love to quote Aristotle, Horace, Montaigne and show off their knowledge; in England only uneducated people show off their knowledge, nobody quotes Latin and Greek authors in the course of a conversation, unless he has never read them.

On the Continent almost every nation whether little or great has openly declared at one time or another that it is superior to all other nations; the English fight heroic wars to combat these dangerous ideas without ever mentioning which is really the most superior race in the world. Continental people are sensitive and touchy; the English take everything with an exquisite sense of humour — they are only offended if you tell them they have no sense of humour. On the Continent the population consists of a small percentage of criminals, a small percentage of honest people and the rest are a vague transition between the two; in England you find a small percentage of criminals and the rest are honest people. On the other hand, people on the Continent either tell you the truth or lie; in England they hardly ever lie, but they would not dream of telling you the truth.

Many continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a game.

Introduction

This is a chapter on how to introduce people to one another.

The aim of introduction is to conceal a person's identity. It is very important that you should not pronounce anybody's name in a way that the other party may be able to catch it. Generally speaking, your pronunciation is a sound guarantee for that. On the other hand, if you are introduced to someone there are two important rules to follow.

1. If he stretches out his hand in order to shake yours, you must not accept it. Smile vaguely, and as soon as he gives up hope of shaking you by the hand, you stretch out yours and try to catch his in vain. This game is repeated until the greater part of the afternoon or evening has elapsed. It is extremely likely that this will be the most amusing part of the afternoon or evening, anyway.

2. Once the introduction has been made you have to inquire after the health of your new acquaintance.

Try the thing in your own language. Introduce the persons, let us say, in French and murmur their names. Should they shake hands and ask:

“Comment allez-vous?”

“Comment allez-vous?” — it will be a capital joke, remembered till their last days.

Do not forget, however, that your new friend who makes this touchingly kind enquiry after your state of health does not care in the least whether you are well and kicking or dying of delirium tremens. A dialogue like this:

He: “How d'you do?”

You: “General state of health fairly satisfactory. Slight insomnia and a rather bad corn on left foot. Blood pressure low, digestion slow but normal.”

- well, such a dialogue would be unforgivable.

In the next phase, you must not say “Pleased to meet you.” This is one of the very few lies you must never utter because, for some unknown reason, it is considered vulgar. You must not say “Pleased to meet you,” even if your are definitely disgusted with the man.

A few general remarks:

(a) Do not click your heels, do not bow, leave off gymnastic and choreographic exercises altogether for the moment.

(b) Do not call foreign lawyers, teachers, dentists, commercial travellers and estate agents “Doctor.” Everyone knows that the little word “doctor” only means they are Central Europeans. This is painful enough in itself, you do not need to remind people of it all the time.

The Weather

This is the most important topic in the land. Do not be misled by memories of your youth when, on the Continent, wanting to describe someone as exceptionally dull, you remarked: “He is the type who would discuss the weather with you.” In England this is an ever-interesting, even thrilling topic, and you must be good as discussing the weather.

Now observe the last few sentences of this conversation. A very important rule emerges from it. You must never contradict anybody when discussing the weather. Should it hail and snow, should hurricanes uproot the trees from the sides of the road, and should someone remark to you: “Nice day, isn't it?” — answer without hesitation: “Isn't it lovely?”

Learn the above conversation by heart. If you are a bit slow in picking things up, learn at least one conversation, it would do wonderfully for any occasion.

If you do not say anything else for the rest of your life, just repeat this conversation, you still have a fair chance of passing as a remarkably witty man of sharp intellect, keen observation and extremely pleasant manners.

English society is a class society, strictly organised almost on corporative lines. If you doubt this, listen to the weather forecasts. There is always a different weather forecast for farmers. You often hear statements like this on the radio:

“Tomorrow it will be cold, cloudy and foggy; long periods of rain will be interrupted by short periods of showers.”

And then:

“Weather forecast for farmers. It will be fair and warm, many hours of sunshine.”

You must not forget that farmers do grand work of national importance and deserve better weather.

It happened on innumerable occasions that nice, warm weather had been forecast and rain and snow fell all day long, or vice versa. Some people jumped rashly to the conclusion that something must be wrong with the weather forecasts. They are mistaken and should be more careful with their allegations.

I have read an article in one of the Sunday papers and now I can tell you what the situation really is. All troubles are caused by anti-cyclones. (I don't quite know what anti-cyclones are, but this is not important; I hate cyclones and am very anti-cyclone myself.) The two naughtiest anti-cyclones are the Azores and the Polar anti-cyclones.

The British meteorologists forecast the right weather — as it really should be — and then these impertinent little anti-cyclones interfere and mess up everything.

That again proves that if the British kept to themselves and did not mix with foreign things like Polar and Azores anti-cyclones they would be much better off.

Soul and Understatement

Foreigners have souls; the English haven't.

On the Continent you find any amount of people who sigh deeply for no conspicuous reason, yearn, suffer and look in the air extremely sadly. This is soul.

The worst kind of soul is the great Slav soul. People who suffer from it are usually very deep thinkers. They may say things like this: “Sometimes I am so merry and sometimes I am so sad. Can you explain why?” (You cannot, do not try.) Or they may say: “I am so mysterious ... I sometimes wish I were somewhere else than where I am.” (Do not say: “I wish you were.”) Or “When I am alone in the forest at night-time and jump from one tree to another, I often think that life is so strange.”

All this is very deep: and just soul, nothing else. The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead. If a continental youth wants to declare his love to a girl, he kneels down, tells her that she is the sweetest, the most charming and ravishing person in the world, that she has something in her, something peculiar and individual which only a few hundred thousand other women have and that he would be unable to live one more minute without her. Often, to give a little more emphasis to the statement, he shoots himself on the spot. This is a normal, week-day declaration of love in the more temperamental continental countries. In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says softly: “I don't object to you, you know.” If he is quite mad with passion, he may add: “I rather fancy you, in fact.”

If he wants to marry a girl he says: “I say ... would you? ...”

If he wants to make an indecent proposal: “I say ... what about...”

Overstatement, too, plays a considerable part in English social life. This takes mostly the form of someone remarking: “I say ...” and then keeping silent for three days on end.

Tea

The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink.

So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it.

To the eternal glory of British science their labour bore fruit. They suggested that if you do not drink it clear, or with lemon or rum and sugar, but pour a few drops of cold milk into it, and no sugar at all, the desired object is achieved. Once this refreshing, aromatic, oriental beverage was successfully transformed into colourless and tasteless gargling-water, it suddenly became the national drink of Great Britain and Ireland — still retaining, indeed usurping, the high-sounding title of tea.

There are some occasions when you must not refuse a cup of tea, otherwise you are judged an exotic and barbarous bird without any hope of ever being able to take your place in civilised society.

If you are invited into an English home, at five o'clock in the morning you get a cup of tea. It is either brought in by a heartily smiling hostess or an almost malevolently silent maid. When you are disturbed in your sweetest morning sleep you must not say: “Madame (or Mabel), I think you are a cruel, spiteful and malignant person who deserves to be shot.” On the contrary, you have to declare with your best five o'clock smile: “Thank you so much. I do adore a cup of early morning tea, especially early in the morning.” If they leave you alone with the liquid, you may pour it down the washbasin.

Then you have tea for breakfast; then you have tea at 11 o'clock in the morning; then after lunch; then you have tea for tea; then after supper; and again at 11 o'clock at night.

You must not refuse additional cups of tea under the following circumstances: if it is hot; if it is cold; if you are tired; if anybody thinks you might be tired; if you are nervous; if you are gay; before you go out; if you are out; if you have just returned home; if you feel like it; if you do not feel like it; if you have had no tea for some time; if you have just had a cup.

You definitely must not follow my example. I sleep at five o'clock in the morning; I have coffee for breakfast; I drink innumerable cups of black coffee during the day; I have the most unorthodox and exotic teas even at tea-time.

The other day, for instance — I just mention this as a terrifying example to show you how low some people can sink — I wanted a cup of coffee and a piece of cheese for tea. It was one of those exceptionally hot days and my wife (once a good Englishwoman, now completely and hopelessly led astray by my wicked foreign influence) made some cold coffee and put it in the refrigerator, where it froze and become one solid block. On the other hand, she left the cheese on the kitchen table, where it melted. So I have a piece of coffee and a glass of cheese.

Sex

Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles.

A Word on Some Publishers

I heard of a distinguished pure-minded English publisher who adapted John Steinbeck's novel, “The Grapes of Wrath,” so skillfully that it became a charming little family book on grapes and other fruits, with many illustrations.

On the other hand, a continental publisher in London had a French political book, “The Popular Front,” translated into English. It became an exciting, pornographic book called “The Popular Behind.”

The Language

When I arrived in England I thought I knew English. After I'd been here an hour I realised that I did not understand one word. In the first week I picked up a tolerable working knowledge of the language and the next seven years convinced me gradually but thoroughly that I would never know it really well, let alone perfectly. This is sad. My only consolation being that nobody speaks English perfectly.

Remember that those five hundred words an average Englishman uses are far from being the whole vocabulary of the language. You may learn another five hundred and yet another five thousand and yet another fifty thousand and still you may come across a further fifty thousand you have never heard before, and nobody else either.

If you live here long enough you will find out to your great amazement that the adjective nice is not the only adjective that the language possesses, in spite of the fact that in the first three years you do not need to learn any other adjectives. You can say the weather is nice, a restaurant is nice, Mr. Soandso is nice, Mrs. Soandso's clothes are nice, you had a nice time, and all this will be very nice.

Then you have to decide on your accent. You will have your foreign accent, all right, but many people like to mix it with something else. I knew a Polish Jew who had a strong Yiddish-Irish accent. People found it fascinating though slightly exaggerated. The easiest way to give the impression of having a good accent or no foreign accent is to hold an unlit pipe in your mouth, to mutter between your teeth and finish all your sentences with the question: “isn't it?” People will not understand much, but they are accustomed to that and they will get a most excellent impression.

I have known quite a number of foreigners who tried hard to acquire an Oxford accent. The advantage of this is that you give the impression of being permanently in the company of Oxfords dons and lecturers on mediaeval numismatics; the disadvantage is that the permanent singing is rather a strain on your throat and that it is a type of affectation that even many English people find hard to keep up incessantly. You may fall out of it, speak naturally, and then where are you?

The Mayfair accent can be highly recommended, too. The advantages of Mayfair English are that it unites the affected air of the Oxford accent with the uncultured flavour of a half-educated professional hotel-dancer.

The most successful attempts, however, to put on a highly cultured air have been made on the polysyllabic lines. Many foreigners who have learnt Latin and Greek in school discover with amazement and satisfaction that the English language has absorbed a huge amount of ancient latin and Greek expressions, and they realise that

(a) it is much easier to learn these expressions than the much simpler English words;

(b) that these words as a rule are interminably long and make a simply superb impression when talking to the greengrocer, the porter and the insurance agent.

Imagine, for instance, that the porter of the block of flats where you live remarks sharply that you must not put your dustbin out in front of your door before 7:30 a.m. Should you answer “please don't bully me,” a loud and tiresome argument may follow, and certainly the porter will be proved right, because you are sure to find a clause in your contract (small print, bottom of last page) that the porter is always right and you owe absolute allegiance and unconditional obedience to him. Should you answer, however, with these words: “I repudiate your petulant expostulations,” the argument will be closed at once, the porter will be proud of having such a highly cultured man in the block, and from that day onwards you may, if you please, get up at four o'clock in the morning and hang your dustbin out the window.

But even in Curzon Street society, if you say, for instance, that you are a tough guy they will consider you a vulgar, irritating and objectionable person. Should you declare, however, that you are an inquisitorial and peremptory homo sapiens, they will have no idea what you mean, but they will feel in their bones that you must be something wonderful.

When you know all the long words it is advisable to start learning some of the short ones too.

You should be careful when using these endless words. An acquaintance of mine once was fortunate enough to discover the most impressive word notalgia for back-ache. Mistakenly, however, he declared in a large company:

“I have such a nostalgia.”

“Oh, you want to go home to Nizhne-Novgorod?” asked his most sympathetic hostess.

“Not at all,” he answered. “I just cannot sit down.”

Finally, there are two important points to remember:

1. Do not forget that it is much easier to write in English than to speak in English, because you can write without a foreign accent.

2. In a bus and in other public places it is more advisable to speak softly in good German than to shout in abominable English.

Anyway, this whole language business is not at all easy. After spending eight years in this country, the other day I was told by a very kind lady: “But why do you complain? You really speak a most excellent accent without the slightest English.”

How Not to be Clever

“You foreigners are so clever,” said a lady to me some years ago. First, thinking of the great amount of foreign idiots and half-wits I had had the honour of meeting, I considered this remark exaggerated but complimentary.

Since then I have learnt that it was far from it. These few words expressed the lady's contempt and slight disgust for foreigners.

If you look up the word clever in any English dictionary, you will find that the dictionaries are out of date and mislead you on this point. According to the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, for instance, the word means quick and neat in movement ... skillful, talented, ingenious. Nuttall's Dictionary gives these meanings: dexterous, skillful, ingenious, quick or ready-witted, intelligent. All nice adjectives, expressing valuable and estimable characteristics. A modern Englishman, however, uses the word clever in the sense: shrewd, sly, furtive, surreptitious, treacherous, sneaking, crafty, un-English, un-Scottish, un-Welsh.

In England it is bad manners to be clever, to assert something confidently. It may be your own personal view that two and two make four, but you must not state it in a self-assured way, because this is a democratic country and others may be of a different opinion.

A continental gentleman seeing a nice panorama may remark:

“This view reminds me of Ultrecht, where the peace treaty concluding the War of Spanish Succession was signed on the 11th April, 1713. The river there, however, recalls the Guadalquivir, which rises in the Sierra de Cazorla and flows south-west to the Atlantic Ocean and is 650 kilometres long. Oh rivers ... what did Pascal say about them? ‘Les rivières sont les chemins qui marchent ...’ ”

This pompous, showing-off way of speaking is not permissible in England. The Englishman looking at the same view would remain silent for two or three hours and think about how to put his profound feelings into words. The he would remark:

“It's pretty, isn't it?”

An English professor of mathematics would say to his maid checking up the shopping list:

“I'm no good at arithmetic, I'm afraid. Please correct me, Jane, if I am wrong, but I believe the square root of 97344 is 312.”

And about knowledge. An English girl, of course, would be able to learn just a little more about, say, geography. But it is just not “chic” to know whether Budapest is the capital of Roumania, Hungary of Bulgaria. And if she happens to know that Budapest is the capital of Roumania, she should at least be perplexed if Bucharest is mentioned suddenly.

It is so much nicer to ask, when someone speaks of Barbados, Banska Bystrica or Fiji: “Oh, those little islands ... Are they British?” (They usually are.)

How to be Rude

It is easy to be rude on the Continent. You just shout and call people names of a zoological character.

On a slightly higher level you may invent a few stories against your opponents. In Budapest, for instance, when a rather unpleasant-looking actress joined a nudist club, her younger and prettier colleagues spread the story that she had been accepted only under the condition that she wear a fig-leaf on her face. Or in the same city there was a painter of limited abilities who was a most successful card-player. A colleague of his remarked once: “What a spendthrift! All the money he makes on industrious gambling at night, he spends on his painting during the day.”

In England rudeness has quite a different technique. If somebody tells you an obviously untrue story, on the Continent you would remark “You are a liar, Sir, and a rather dirty one at that.” In England you just say “Oh, is that so?” Or “That's rather an unusual story, isn't it?”

When some years ago, knowing ten words of English and using them all wrong, I applied for a translator's job, my would-be employer (or would-not-be employer) softly remarked: “I am afraid your English is somewhat unorthodox.” This translated into any continental language would mean: Employer (to the commisionaire): “Jean, kick this gentleman down the steps!”

In the last century, when a wicked and unworthy subject annoyed the Sultan of Turkey or the Czar of Russia, he had his head cut off without much ceremony; but when the same happened in England, the monarch declared: “We are not amused”; and the whole British nation even now, a century later, is immensely proud of how rude their Queen was.

Terribly rude expressions (if pronounced grimly) are: “I am afraid that ...,” “unless ...,” “nevertheless ...,” “How queer ...,” and “I am sorry, but ...”

It is true that quite often you can hear remarks like: “You'd better see that you get out of here!” Or “Shut your big mouth!” Or “Dirty pig!” etc. These remarks are very un-English and are the results of foreign influence. (Dating back, however, to the era of the Danish invasion.)

How to Compromise

Wise compromise is one of the basic principles and virtues of the British.

If a continental greengrocer asks 14 schillings (or crowns, or francs, or pengoes, or dinars or leis or drachmai or whatever you like) for a bunch of radishes, and his customer offers 2, and finally they strike a bargain agreeing on 6 schillings, francs, roubles, etc., this is just the low continental habit of bargaining; on the other hand, if the British dock-workers or any other workers claim a rise of 4 schillings per day, and the employers first flatly refuse even a penny, but after a six week strike they agree to a rise of 2 schillings per day — that is yet another proof of the British genius for compromise. Bargaining is a repulsive habit; compromise is one of the highest human virtues — the difference between the two being that the first is practiced on the Continent, the latter in Great Britain.

The genius for compromise has another aspect, too. It has a tendency to unite together everything which is bad. English club life, for instance, unites the liabilities of social life with the boredom of solitude. An average English house combines all the curses of civilisation with the vicissitudes of life in the open. It is all right to have windows, but you must not have double windows because double windows would indeed stop the wind from blowing right into the room, and, after all, you must be fair and give the wind a chance. It is all right to have central heating in an English home, except in the bath room, because that is the only place where you are naked and wet at the same time, and you must give British germs a fair chance. The open fire is an accepted, indeed a traditional institution. You sit in front of it and your face is hot whilst your back is cold. It is a fair compromise between two extremes and settles the problem of how to burn and catch cold at the same time. The fact that you may have a drink at five to six is an extremely wise compromise between two things (I do not quite know between what, certainly not between prohibition and licentiousness), achieving the great aim that nobody can get drunk between three o'clock and six o'clock in the afternoon unless he wants to and drinks at home.

English spelling is a compromise between documentary expressions and an elaborate code-system; spending three hours in a queue in front of a cinema is a compromise between entertainment and asceticism; the English weather is a fair compromise between rain and fog; to employ an English charwoman is a compromise between having a dirty house or cleaning it yourself; Yorkshire pudding is a compromise between a pudding and the county of Yorkshire.

The Labour party is a fair compromise between Socialism and Bureaucracy; the Beveridge Plan is a fair compromise between being and not being a Socialist at the same time; the Liberal Party is a fair compromise between the Beveridge Plan and Toryism; the Independent Labour Party is a fair compromise between Independent Labour and a political party; the Tory-reformers are a fair compromise between revolutionary conservatism and retrograde progress; and the whole British political life is a huge and non-compromising fight between compromising Conservatives and compromising Socialists.

How to be a Hypocrite

If you want to be really and truly British, you must become a hypocrite.

Now: how to be a hypocrite?

As some people say that an example explains things better than the best theory, let me try this way.

I had a drink with an English friend of mine in a pub. We were sitting on the high chairs in front of the counter when a flying bomb exploded about a hundred yards away. I was truly and honestly frightened, and when a few seconds later I looked around, I could not see my friend anywhere. At last I noticed he was lying on the floor, flat as a pancake. When he realised that nothing particular had happened in the pub he go up a little embarrassed, flicked the dust off his suit, and turned to me with a superior and sarcastic smile.

“Good Heavens! Were you so frightened that you couldn't move?”

About Simple Joys

It is important that you should learn how to enjoy simple joys, because that is extremely English. All serious Englishmen play darts and cricket and many other games; a famous English statesman was reported to be catching butterflies in the interval between giving up two European states to the Germans; there was even some misunderstanding with the French because they considered the habit of English soldiers of singing and playing football and hide and seek and blind man's bluff slightly childish.

Dull and pompous foreigners are unable to understand why ex-cabinet ministers get together and sing “Daisy, Daisy” in choir; why serious business men play with toy locomotives while their children learn trigonometry in the adjoining room; why High Court judges collect rare birds when rare birds are rare and they cannot collect many in any case; why it is the ambition of grown-up persons to push a little ball into a small hole; why a great politician who saved England and made history is called a “jolly good fellow.”

They cannot grasp why people sing when alone and yet sit silent and dumb for hours on end in their clubs, not uttering a word for months in the most distinguished company, and pay twenty guineas a year for the privilege.

The National Passion

Queueing is the national passion of an otherwise dispassionate race. The English are rather shy about it, and deny that they adore it.

On the Continent, if people are waiting at a bus-stop they loiter around in a seemingly vague fashion. When the bus arrives, they make a dash for it; most of them leave by the bus and a lucky minority is taken away by an elegant black ambulance car. An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.

The biggest and most attractive advertisements in from of cinemas tell people: Queue here for 4/6; Queue here for 9/3; Queue here for 16/8 (inclusive of tax). Those cinemas which do not put out these queueing signs do not do good business at all.

At week-ends an Englishman queues up at the bus-stop, travels out to Richmond, queues up for a boat, then queues up for tea, then queues up for ice-cream, the joins a few more odd queues just for the sake of the fun of it, then queues up at the bus-stop and has the time of his life.

Many English families spend lovely evenings at home just by queueing up for a few hours, and the parents are very sad when the children leave them and queue up for going to bed.

Three Small Points

If you go out for a walk with a friend, don't say a word for hours; if you go out for a walk with your dog, keep chatting to him.

There is a three-chamber legislation in England. A bill to become law has to be passed by the House of Commons and the House of Lords and finally approved by the Brains Trust.

A fishmonger is the man who mongs fish; the ironmonger and the warmonger do the same with iron and war. They just mong them.