Watching the English

THE RULES OF ENGLISH GOSSIP

Following the customary awkward introductions and uncomfortable greetings, and a bit of ice-breaking weather-speak, we move on to other forms of grooming-talk. ('One must speak a little, you know,' as Elizabeth said to Darcy, 'It would look odd to be entirely silent.')

Strangers may stick to The Weather and other relatively neutral topics almost indefinitely (although actually The Weather is the only topic that is entirely safe - all other subjects are potentially 'dangerous', at least in some situations, and all carry at least some restrictions as to when, where and with whom they may be raised). But the most common form of grooming-talk among friends, in England as elsewhere, is gossip. The English are certainly a nation of gossips. Recent studies in this country have shown that about two-thirds of our conversation time is entirely devoted to social topics such as who is doing what with whom; who is 'in', who is 'out' and why; how to deal with difficult social situations; the behaviour and relationships of friends, family and celebrities; our own problems with family, friends, lovers, colleagues and neighbours; the minutiae of everyday social life - in a word: gossip.14

If you want a more formal definition of gossip, the best I have come across is Noon amp; Delbridge (1993): 'The process of informally communicating value-laden information about members of a social setting.' This does not quite cover all aspects of gossip - it excludes gossip about celebrities, for example, unless the concept of 'members of a social setting' is intended to include film stars, pop stars, royals and politicians, which seems unlikely. But, to be fair, there is a sense in which our gossip about celebrities does involve treating them as though they were members of our own social group - our conversations about the conflicts between characters in soap operas, the relationship problems of supermodels and the marriages, careers and babies of film stars are often indistinguishable from our gossip about family, friends and neighbours - so I'll give Noon amp; Delbridge the benefit of the doubt on this point.

In fact, one of the reasons I like this definition is that it gives some indication of the range of people about whom gossipy information may be communicated, including the gossipers themselves. Researchers have found that about half of 'gossip time' is taken up with discussion of the activities of the speaker or the immediate audience, rather than the doings of other people. This definition also helpfully conveys the evaluative nature of gossip. Although it has been shown that criticism and negative evaluations account for only about five per cent of gossip time, gossip does generally involve the expression of opinions or feelings. Among the English, you will find that these opinions or feelings may often be implied, rather than directly stated, or conveyed more subtly in the tone of voice, but we rarely share details about 'who is doing what with whom' without providing some indication of our views on the matter.

Privacy Rules

In quoting the research findings on the pervasiveness of English gossip above, I am not suggesting that the English gossip any more than people in other cultures. I am sure that studies elsewhere would also find about two-thirds of conversation time dedicated to much the same social matters. The researcher responsible for the English findings (the psychologist Robin Dunbar) is convinced that this is a universal human trait, and indeed maintains that language evolved to allow humans to gossip15 - as a substitute for the physical 'social grooming' of our primate ancestors, which became impractical among the much wider human social networks.

What I am suggesting is that gossip may be particularly important to the English, because of our obsession with privacy. When I conducted interviews and focus-group discussions on gossip with English people of different ages and social backgrounds, it became clear that their enjoyment of gossip had much to do with the element of 'risk' involved. Although most of our gossip is fairly innocuous (criticism and negative evaluations of others account for only five per cent of gossip time), it is still talk about people's 'private' lives, and as such involves a sense of doing something naughty or forbidden.

The 'invasion of privacy' involved in gossip is particularly relevant for the reserved and inhibited English, for whom privacy is an especially serious matter. It is impossible to overstate the importance of privacy in English culture. Jeremy Paxman points out that: 'The importance of privacy informs the entire organization of the country, from the assumptions on which laws are based, to the buildings in which the English live.' George Orwell observes that: 'The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosy Parker.'

I would add that a disproportionate number of our most influential social rules and maxims are concerned with the maintenance of privacy: we are taught to mind our own business, not to pry, to keep ourselves to ourselves, not to make a scene or a fuss or draw attention to ourselves, and never to wash our dirty linen in public. It is worth noting here that 'How are you?' is only treated as a 'real' question among very close personal friends or family; everywhere else, the automatic, ritual response is 'Fine, thanks', 'OK, thanks', 'Oh, mustn't grumble', 'Not bad, thanks' or some equivalent, whatever your physical or mental state. If you are terminally ill, it is acceptable to say 'Not bad, considering'.

As a result, thanks to the inevitable forbidden-fruit effect, we are a nation of curtain-twitchers, endlessly fascinated by the tabooed private lives of the 'members of our social setting'. The English may not gossip much more than any other culture, but our privacy rules significantly enhance the value of gossip. The laws of supply and demand ensure that gossip is a precious social commodity among the English. 'Private' information is not given away lightly or cheaply to all and sundry, but only to those we know and trust.

This is one of the reasons why foreigners often complain that the English are cold, reserved, unfriendly and stand-offish. In most other cultures, revealing basic personal data - your name, what you do for a living, whether you are married or have children, where you live - is no big deal: in England, extracting such apparently trivial information from a new acquaintance can be like pulling teeth - every question makes us wince and recoil.

The Guessing-game Rule

It is not considered entirely polite, for example, to ask someone directly 'What do you do?', although if you think about it, this is the most obvious question to put to a new acquaintance, and the easiest way to start a conversation. But in addition to our privacy scruples, we English seem to have a perverse need to make social life difficult for ourselves, so etiquette requires us to find a more roundabout, indirect way of discovering what people do for a living. It can be most amusing to listen to the tortured and devious lengths to which English people will go to ascertain a new acquaintance's profession without actually asking the forbidden question. The guessing game, which is played at almost every middle-class social gathering where people are meeting each other for the first time, involves attempting to guess a person's occupation from 'clues' in remarks made about other matters.

A comment about traffic problems in the local area, for example, will elicit the response 'Oh, yes, it's a nightmare - and the rush hour is even worse: do you drive to work?' The other person knows exactly what question is really intended, and will usually obligingly answer the unspoken enquiry as well as the spoken one, saying something like: 'Yes, but I work at the hospital, so at least I don't have to get into the town centre.' The questioner is now allowed to make a direct guess: 'Oh, the hospital - you're a doctor, then?' (When two or three possible occupations are indicated, it is polite to name the highest-status one as a first guess - doctor rather than nurse, porter or medical student; solicitor rather than secretary. Also, even though an explicit guess is permitted at this stage, it is best expressed as an interrogative statement, rather than as a direct question.)

Everyone knows the rules of this game, and most people tend to offer helpful 'clues' early in the conversation, to speed the process along. Even if you are shy, embarrassed about your job, or trying to be enigmatic, it is considered very rude to prolong the clue-hunting stage of the game for too long, and once someone makes an explicit guess, you are obliged to reveal your occupation. It is almost equally impolite to ignore any obvious 'clue-dropping' by your new acquaintance. If (to continue the medical theme) he or she mentions in passing that 'My surgery is just round the corner from here', you are honour-bound to hazard a guess: 'Oh, so - you're a GP?'

When the person's occupation is finally revealed, it is customary, however boring or predictable this occupation might be, to express surprise. The standard response to 'Yes, I am a doctor [or teacher, accountant, IT manager, secretary, etc.]' is 'Oh, really?!' as though the occupation were both unexpected and fascinating. This is almost invariably followed by an embarrassed pause, as you search desperately for an appropriate comment or question about the person's profession - and he or she tries to think of something modest, amusing, but somehow also impressive, to say in response.

Similar guessing-game techniques are often used to find out where people live, whether they are married, what school or university they went to, and so on. Some direct questions are more impolite than others. It is less rude, for example, to ask 'Where do you live?' than 'What do you do?', but even this relatively inoffensive question is much better phrased in a more indirect manner, such as 'Do you live nearby?', or even more obliquely 'Have you come far?' It is more acceptable to ask whether someone has children than to ask whether he or she is married, so the former question is generally used as a roundabout way of prompting clues that will provide the answer to the latter. (Many married English males do not wear wedding rings, so the children question is often used by single females to encourage them to reveal their marital status. This can only be done in an appropriate conversational context, however, as asking the children question 'out of the blue' would be too obvious an attempt to ascertain a male's availability.)

The guessing-game rituals allow us, eventually, to elicit this kind of rudimentary census-form information, but the English privacy rules ensure that any more interesting details about our lives and relationships are reserved for close friends and family. This is 'privileged' information, not to be bandied about indiscriminately. The English take a certain pride in this trait, and sneer at the stereotyped Americans who 'tell you all about their divorce, their hysterectomy and their therapist within five minutes of meeting you'. This cliche, although not entirely without foundation, probably tells us more about the English and our privacy rules than it does about the Americans.

Incidentally, the English privacy rules, especially the taboo on 'prying', can make life quite difficult for the hapless social researcher whose life-blood data can only be obtained by constant prying. Many of the findings in this book were discovered the hard way, by pulling metaphorical teeth, or, more often, desperately trying to find sneaky tricks and stratagems that would help me to get round the privacy rules. Still, the process of devising and experimenting with such tricks led me to the identification of some unexpected and interesting rules, such as the distance rule.

The Distance Rule

Among the English, gossip about one's own private doings is reserved for intimates; gossip about the private lives of friends and family is shared with a slightly wider social circle; gossip about the personal affairs of acquaintances, colleagues and neighbours with a larger group; and gossip about the intimate details of public figures' or celebrities' lives with almost anyone. This is the distance rule. The more 'distant' from you the subject of gossip, the wider the circle of people with whom you may gossip about that person.

The distance rule allows gossip to perform its vital social functions - social bonding; clarification of position and status; assessment and management of reputations; transmission of social skills, norms and values - without undue invasion of privacy. More importantly, it also allows nosey-parker anthropologists to formulate their prying questions in such a roundabout manner as to bypass the privacy rules.

If, for example, you want to find out about an English person's attitudes and feelings on a sensitive subject, such as, say, marriage, you do not ask about his or her own marriage - you talk about someone else's marriage, preferably that of a remote public figure not personally known to either of you. When you are better acquainted with the person, you can discuss the domestic difficulties of a colleague or neighbour, or perhaps even a friend or relative. (If you do not happen to have colleagues or relatives with suitably dysfunctional marriages, you can always invent these people.)

The Reciprocal Disclosure Strategy

If you are determined to find out about your new English friend's own marital relations, or any other 'private' matter, you will probably have to resort to the Reciprocal Disclosure Strategy. There is a more or less universal rule whereby people almost unconsciously try to achieve some degree of symmetry or balance in their conversations, such that if you tell them something about your own 'private' life, the other person will feel obliged, if only out of reflex politeness, to reciprocate with a comparably personal disclosure. You can then gradually escalate the level of intimacy by making your next disclosure somewhat more revealing, in the hope of eliciting an equivalent response, and so on.

Among the English, however, you would be advised to start with a very minor, trivial disclosure - something that barely counts as 'private' at all, and that can be dropped into the conversation casually - and work up, step by step, from this innocuous starting point. The Reciprocal Disclosure Strategy is a laborious, painstaking procedure, but it is often the only way of tricking the English into breaking their privacy taboos.

You might find it quite an amusing experiment, though, to pick the most reserved, buttoned-up English people you can find, and see just how far you can get them to unbend using this technique. Being English myself, I often found it easier to make up my 'personal revelations' than to disclose anything about my real private life. I am sorry to bring my profession into disrepute by admitting to such deceptions, but this would not be an honest account of my research if I neglected to mention all the lies I told.

Exception to the Privacy Rules

There is a curious exception to the privacy rules, which, although it applies only to a certain rather privileged section of English society, is worth mentioning as it tells us something about Englishness. I call it the 'print exception': we may discuss in print (newspapers, magazines, books, etc.) private matters that we would be reluctant or embarrassed to talk about with, say, a new acquaintance at a party. It may seem strange or even perverse, but it is somehow more acceptable to divulge details of one's personal life in a book, newspaper column or magazine article than to do so in the much less public arena of a small social gathering.

Actually, this is one of those 'exceptions that proves the rule', in that what it really tells us is that the vogue for confessional journalism and other candid writing has not significantly affected the rules of behaviour in everyday English life. A newspaper or magazine columnist may tell millions of complete strangers about her messy divorce, her breast cancer, her eating disorder, her worries about cellulite, or whatever, but she will not take kindly to being asked personal questions about such matters by an individual stranger at a private social event. Her taboo-breaking is purely professional; in real life, she observes the English privacy and distance rules like everyone else, discussing private matters only with close friends, and regarding personal questions from anyone outside this inner circle as impertinent and intrusive. Just as you would not ask a professional topless model to take her top off at a family Sunday lunch, so you do not ask professional soul-barers to bare their souls over the canapes at a private party.

The 'print exception' is sometimes extended to cover other media such as television or radio documentaries and chat-shows. It is generally the case, however, that English professional soul-barers disclose rather less in these contexts than in the printed word. The television documentary about the late John Diamond's battle with throat cancer, for example, was far more squeamish and less 'personal' than his newspaper columns and book on the same subject. One also sometimes sees the bizarre phenomenon of an English soul-barer, who has written a highly revealing book or column, coming over all coy and embarrassed, and taking refuge in nervous jokes and euphemisms, when interviewed about it on a chat-show. This is not to say that all soul-barers are more reserved and restrained in such contexts, but there does seem to be a subtle yet noticeable difference in degree of disinhibition between the written and the spoken word. And even those who do not observe this fine distinction, and talk freely about their private affairs in documentaries and chat-shows, will still subscribe to the privacy rules when they are not on air.

There are, of course, in England as elsewhere, some people who will do or say or reveal almost anything, anywhere, to achieve their 'fifteen minutes of fame', or to score points off someone, or to make money. But those who break the privacy rules (and these are clearly breaches, not exceptions) in this blatant manner are a tiny minority, and their antics are generally reviled and ridiculed by the rest of the population, indicating that observance of these rules is still the norm.

Sex Differences in English Gossip Rules

Contrary to popular belief, researchers16 have found that men gossip just as much as women. In one English study, both sexes devoted the same amount of conversation time (about 65 per cent) to social topics such as personal relationships; in another, the difference was found to be quite small, with gossip accounting for 55 per cent of male conversation time and 67 per cent of female time. As sport and leisure have been shown to occupy about 10 per cent of conversation time, discussion of football could well account for the difference.

Men were certainly found to be no more likely than women to discuss 'important' or 'highbrow' subjects such as politics, work, art and cultural matters - except (and this was a striking difference) when women were present. On their own, men gossip, with no more than five per cent of conversation time devoted to non-social subjects such as work or politics. It is only in mixed-sex groups, where there are women to impress, that the proportion of male conversation time devoted to these more 'highbrow' subjects increases dramatically, to between 15 and 20 per cent.

In fact, recent research has revealed only one significant difference, in terms of content, between male and female gossip: men spend much more time talking about themselves. Of the total time devoted to conversation about social relationships, men spend two thirds talking about their own relationships, while women only talk about themselves one third of the time.

Despite these findings, the myth is still widely believed, particularly among males, that men spend their conversations 'solving the world's problems', while the womenfolk gossip in the kitchen. In my focus groups and interviews, most English males initially claimed that they did not gossip, while most of the females readily admitted that they did. On further questioning, however, the difference turned out to be more a matter of semantics than practice: what the women were happy to call 'gossip', the men defined as 'exchanging information'.

Clearly, there is a stigma attached to gossip among English males, an unwritten rule to the effect that, even if what one is doing is gossiping, it should be called something else. Perhaps even more important: it should sound like something else. In my gossip research, I found that the main difference between male and female gossip is that female gossip actually sounds like gossip. There seem to be three principal factors involved: the tone rule, the detail rule and the feedback rule.

The Tone Rule

The English women I interviewed all agreed that a particular tone of voice was considered appropriate for gossip. The gossip-tone should be high and quick, or sometimes a stage whisper, but always highly animated. 'Gossip's got to start with something like [quick, high-pitched, excited tone] "Oooh - Guess what? Guess what?"' explained one woman, 'or "Hey, listen, listen [quick, urgent, stage-whisper] - you know what I heard?"' Another told me: 'You have to make it sound surprising or scandalous, even when it isn't really. You'll go, "Well, don't tell anyone, but..." even when it's not really that big of a secret.'

Many of the women complained that men failed to adopt the correct tone of voice, recounting items of gossip in the same flat, unemotional manner as any other piece of information, such that, as one woman sniffed, 'You can't even tell it's gossip.' Which, of course, is exactly the impression the males wish to give.

The Detail Rule

Females also stressed the importance of detail in the telling of gossip, and again bemoaned the shortcomings of males in this matter, claiming that men 'never know the details'. 'Men just don't do the he-said-she-said thing,' one informant told me, 'and it's no good unless you actually know what people said.' Another said: 'Women tend to speculate more... They'll talk about why someone did something, give a history to the situation.' For women, this detailed speculation about possible motives and causes, requiring an exhaustive raking over 'history', is a crucial element of gossip, as is detailed speculation about possible outcomes. English males find all this detail boring, irrelevant and, of course, un-manly.

The Feedback Rule

Among English women, it is understood that to be a 'good gossip' requires more than a lively tone and attention to detail: you also need a good audience, by which they mean appreciative listeners who give plenty of appropriate feedback. The feedback rule of female gossip requires that listeners be at least as animated and enthusiastic as speakers. The reasoning seems to be that this is only polite: the speaker has gone to the trouble of making the information sound surprising and scandalous, so the least one can do is to reciprocate by sounding suitably shocked. English men, according to my female informants, just don't seem to have grasped this rule. They do not understand that 'You are supposed to say "NO! Really?" and "Oh my GOD!"'

My female informants agreed, however, that a man who did respond in the approved female manner would sound inappropriately girly, or even disturbingly effeminate. Even the gay males I interviewed felt that the 'NO! Really?' kind of response would be regarded as decidedly 'camp'. The unwritten rules of English gossip etiquette do allow men to express shock or surprise when they hear a particularly juicy bit of gossip, but it is understood that a suitable expletive conveys such surprise in a more acceptably masculine fashion.

English Males, Animation and the Three-emotions Rule

It is possible that these sex differences in gossip rules may account for the persistence of the 'gossip is female' myth. If popular perceptions equate high-pitched, quick, animated speech, and frequent use of expressions such as 'Guess what? Guess what?' and 'NO! Really?' with gossip, then male conversations, at least in England, will very rarely sound like gossip, although their content may be identifiable as gossip. Gossiping English males sound as though they are talking about 'important issues' (or cars, or football) - which is of course precisely their intention.

Some of these rules and sex differences may not be peculiarly English. The detail rule, for example, may even be a universal female trait, it being well established that females tend to be more verbally skilled than males. I would also expect similar research in America and perhaps Australia to find similar higher levels of animation in female gossip, both in the telling and in the response. But these are countries influenced at least to some extent by English culture, and my admittedly more limited research in other European cultures indicates that males in these societies are much less restrained, and considerably more animated, in their discussions of social matters. 'NON! C'est pas vrai? Ah, mon Dieu!' is certainly a perfectly normal and acceptable male response to a scandalous bit of gossip in France, for example, and I have heard similarly animated male gossip in Italy, Spain, Belgium, Poland, Lebanon and Russia.

It is not that men in these cultures are any less concerned than English males about appearing effeminate. Fear of being seen as unmanly is undoubtedly a male cross-cultural universal. It is just that only the English (and our 'colonial descendants') seem to regard animated tones and expressive responses as effeminate.

Nor am I saying that English conversation codes do not allow men to express emotion. English males are allowed to express emotion. Well, they are allowed to express some emotions. Three, to be precise: surprise, providing it is conveyed by expletives; anger, generally communicated in the same manner; and elation/triumph, which again often involves shouting and swearing. It can thus sometimes be rather hard to tell exactly which of the three permitted emotions an Englishman is attempting to express.