Watching the English

WATCHING THE ENGLISH

Copyright 2004 by Kate Fox

The right of Kate Fox to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Epub ISBN 978 1 84894 050 5

Book ISBN 978 0 340 81886 2

Hodder and Stoughton Ltd

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338 Euston Road

London NW1 3BH

www.hodder.co.uk

To Henry, William, Sarah and Katharine

Introduction - Anthropology at Home

The Weather

Grooming-talk

Humour Rules

Linguistic Class Codes

Emerging Talk-rules: The Mobile Phone

Pub-talk