Watching the English

COURTESY RULES

Although many of the foreign visitors I interviewed complained about English reserve, they all tended to be impressed by our courtesy. This apparent contradiction is accurately expressed by Bill Bryson, who is amazed and somewhat spooked by the 'orderly quiet' of the London Underground: 'All these thousands of people passing on stairs and escalators, stepping on and off crowded trains, sliding off into the darkness with wobbling heads, and never speaking, like characters from Night of the Living Dead.' A few pages later, at another train station, he is full of praise for the courteous behaviour of a large crowd of rugby fans: 'They boarded with patience and without pushing, and said sorry when they bumped or inadvertently impinged on someone's space. I admired this instinctive consideration for others, and was struck by what a regular thing that is in Britain and how little it is noticed.'

'Negative-politeness' Rules

But our much-maligned reserve and our much-admired courtesy are, it seems to me, two sides of the same coin. In fact, at one level, our reserve is a form of courtesy - the kind of courtesy that the sociolinguists Brown and Levinson call 'negative politeness', meaning that it is concerned with other people's need not to be intruded or imposed upon (as opposed to 'positive politeness', which is concerned with their need for inclusion and social approval). The restraint, cautiousness and contact-avoidance of English public-transport passengers - the stand-offishness that foreigners complain about - are all characteristic features of 'negative politeness'. What looks like unfriendliness is really a kind of consideration: we judge others by ourselves, and assume that everyone shares our obsessive need for privacy - so we mind our own business and politely ignore them.

All cultures practise both forms of politeness, but most incline somewhat more towards one than the other. The English are a predominantly 'negative-politeness' culture, while the Americans, for example, tend to favour the more warm, inclusive 'positive-politeness' mode. Although these are crude distinctions, and there are class and other sub-cultural variations in both types of culture, it seems probable that visitors from 'positive-politeness' cultures are more likely to misunderstand and be offended by the 'polite' aloofness of the English than those from cultures that are similar to our own in this respect (according to Brown and Levinson, these 'negative-politeness' cultures include Japan, Madagascar and certain sections of Indian society).

Bumping Experiments and the Reflex-apology Rule

Which brings me to the bumping experiments. I spent several amusing afternoons in busy, crowded public places (train stations, tube stations, bus stations, shopping centres, street corners, etc.) accidentally-on-purpose bumping into people to see if they would say 'sorry'. A number of my informants, both natives and visitors, had cited this 'reflex apology' as a particularly striking example of English courtesy, and I was fairly sure I had experienced it myself - but I felt obliged to do the proper scientific thing and actually test the theory in a field-experiment or two.

My bumping got off to a rather poor start. The first few bumps were technically successful, in that I managed to make them seem convincingly accidental34, but I kept messing up the experiment by blurting out an apology before the other person had a chance to speak. As usual, this turned out to be a test of my own Englishness: I found that I could not bump into someone, however gently, without automatically saying 'sorry'. After several of these false starts, I finally managed to control my knee-jerk apologies by biting my lip - firmly and rather painfully - as I did the bumps. Having perfected the technique, I tried to make my experiments as scientific as possible by bumping into a representative cross-section of the English population, in a representative sample of locations. Somewhat to my surprise, the English lived up to their reputation: about 80 per cent of my victims said 'sorry' when I lurched into them, even though the collisions were quite clearly my fault.

There were some minor variations in the response: I found that older people were slightly more likely to apologize than younger people (late-teenage males were the least apologetic, particularly when in groups), and British Asians seemed to have a somewhat stronger sorry-reflex than British Afro-Caribbeans (possibly a reflection of the negative-politeness tendency in Indian culture - such apologies being a clear example of politeness that is primarily concerned with the avoidance of imposition or intrusion). But these differences were marginal: the vast majority of the bumped, of all ages, classes and ethnic origin, apologized when I 'accidentally' jostled them.

These experiments would tell us little or nothing about Englishness if exactly the same results were obtained in other countries, so by way of 'controls' I diligently bumped into as many people as I could in France, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Poland and Lebanon. Recognising that this would not constitute a representative international sample, I also bumped into tourists of different nationalities (American, German, Japanese, Spanish, Australian, Scandinavian) at tourist-trap locations in London and Oxford. Only the Japanese (surprise, surprise) seemed to have anything even approaching the English sorry-reflex, and they were frustratingly difficult to experiment on, as they appeared to be remarkably adept at sidestepping my attempted collisions35. This is not to say that my bumpees of other nationalities were discourteous or unpleasant - most just said 'Careful!' or 'Watch out!' (or the equivalent in their own language), and many reacted in a positively friendly manner, putting out a helpful arm to steady me, sometimes even solicitously checking that I was unhurt before moving on - but the automatic 'sorry' did seem to be a peculiarly English response.

George Orwell said that the English are 'inveterate gamblers, drink as much beer as their wages will permit, are devoted to bawdy jokes and use probably the foulest language in the world', but he nevertheless concluded, without contradiction, that 'The gentleness of the English civilization is perhaps its most marked characteristic'. As evidence of this, along with the good-temperedness of bus-conductors and unarmed policemen, he cited the fact that 'In no country inhabited by white men is it easier to shove people off the pavement'. Quite so, and if your shove appears to be genuinely accidental, they might even apologize as they stumble into the gutter.

You may be wondering why the English seem to assume that any accidental collision is our fault, and immediately accept the blame for it by apologizing. If so, you are making a mistake. The reflex apology is just that: a reflex - an automatic, knee-jerk response, not a considered admission of guilt. This is a deeply ingrained rule: when any inadvertent, undesired contact occurs (and to the English, almost any contact is by definition undesired), we say 'sorry'.

In fact, any intrusion, impingement or imposition of any kind, however minimal or innocuous, generally requires an apology. We use the word 'sorry' as a prefix to almost any request or question: 'Sorry, but do you know if this train stops at Banbury?' 'Sorry, but is this seat free?' 'Sorry - do you have the time?' 'Sorry, but you seem to be sitting on my coat.' We say 'sorry' if our arm accidentally brushes against someone else's when passing through a crowded doorway; even a 'near miss', where no actual physical contact takes place, can often prompt an automatic 'sorry' from both parties. We often say 'sorry' when we mean 'excuse me' (or 'get out of my way'), such as when asking someone to move so we can get past them. An interrogative 'sorry?' means 'I didn't quite hear what you said - could you repeat it?' (or 'what?'). Clearly, all these sorries are not heartfelt, sincere apologies. Like 'nice', 'sorry' is a useful, versatile, all-purpose word, suitable for all occasions and circumstances. When in doubt, say 'sorry'. Englishness means always having to say you're sorry.

Rules of Ps and Qs

The English may not speak much on public transport, but when they do open their mouths, the words you are most likely to hear, apart from 'sorry', are 'please' and 'thank you' (the latter often shortened to ''anks' or ''kyou'). During the research for this book, I made a point of counting these Ps and Qs. Whenever I took a bus, I would sit or stand as near as possible to the driver (outside central London, most buses nowadays do not have conductors - passengers buy their tickets directly from the driver) to find out how many of the people boarding the bus said 'please' and 'thank you' when purchasing their ticket. I found that the majority of English passengers mind their Ps and Qs, and most of the drivers and conductors also say 'thank you' when accepting money for tickets.

Not only that, but many passengers also thank the bus driver again when they get off at their stop. This practice is less common in very big cities, but in smaller cities and towns it is the norm. On a typical short bus journey from a council estate on the outskirts of Oxford to the city centre, for example, I noted that all of the passengers said ''kyou' or ''anks' as they alighted from the bus - with the noticeable exception of a group of foreign students, who had also omitted the 'please' when buying their tickets. Many tourists and other visitors have commented to me on the politeness of English passengers, and from my own cross-cultural research, I know that this degree of courtesy is unusual. In other countries, the only circumstances in which I have found people regularly thanking bus drivers were in very small communities where they knew the driver personally.

Having said that, I should point out that there is nothing particularly warm or friendly about English Ps and Qs - they are generally muttered, usually without eye contact or smiles. Just because we are distinctively polite and courteous in our public conduct does not mean that we are good-natured, generous, kind-hearted people. We just have rules about Ps and Qs, which most of us observe, most of the time. Our scrupulous pleasing and thanking of bus drivers, conductors, taxi drivers and the like is another manifestation of the 'polite egalitarianism' discussed earlier - reflecting our squeamishness about drawing attention to status differences, and our embarrassment about anything to do with money. We like to pretend that these people are somehow doing us a favour, rather than performing a service for financial reward.

And they collude with us in this pretence. Taxi drivers, in particular, expect to be thanked as well as paid at the end of their journey, and feel offended if the passenger simply hands over the money - although they are usually tolerant towards foreigners who 'don't know any better', as one London cabbie put it when I questioned him on the subject. 'With most English people, it's just automatic,' he explained. 'They say "thanks" or "cheers" or something when they get out - and you say "thanks" back. You get the occasional rude bastard who doesn't, but most people just automatically say "thanks".'

Taxi Exceptions to the Denial Rule - the Role of Mirrors

In return, English taxi drivers are generally courteous towards their customers - and often positively friendly, to the extent of breaking the normal 'denial' rules of privacy and reserve. There is a sort of standing joke among the English about the excessive chattiness of taxi drivers and, indeed, many live up to their garrulous reputation. The main popular stereotype is of the would-be-tabloid-columnist cabbie, who bores or infuriates his passengers with endless heated monologues on everything from the inadequacies of the current Government or the England football coach to the latest celebrity-gossip scandal. I have come across drivers of this type and, like most English passengers, I tend to be too embarrassed either to ask them to shut up or to argue with their more objectionable opinions. We grumble about taxi drivers' breach of the denial rule, but in typically English fashion we make a national joke out of it rather than actually tackling them directly.

There is also, however, another type of chatty cabbie, who does not deliver tabloid monologues but rather attempts to engage his passengers in friendly conversation - usually beginning, in accordance with English protocol, with a comment on the weather, but then breaking with tradition by expressing interest in the passengers' destination and the purpose of their journey (a train station, for example, often prompts the question: 'are you off somewhere nice, then?'). The questions can become more personal (or at least what the English regard as personal - such as enquiries about one's job or family), but most such drivers are remarkably sensitive to nuances of tone and body language, and will not persist if the passenger comes over all English and gives monosyllabic answers or looks squirmy and uncomfortable. Many English people do find these enquiries intrusive, but we are nearly all too polite, or too embarrassed, to tell the cabbie to mind his own business - so these signals are all he has to go on.

There is also an element of 'cultural remission' in conversations with taxi drivers - and with certain other professionals such as hairdressers - whereby the normal rules of reticence and discretion are temporarily suspended, and one can, if one wishes, indulge in much more personal and intimate chat than is usually permitted between strangers. Doctors might well wish that the same suspension of cultural privacy rules applied in their consulting rooms and surgeries, where the English tend to be their usual inhibited, embarrassed selves. I can only suggest that they try speaking to their patients 'through a mirror', either by standing behind them like a hairdresser, or by rigging up a rear-view mirror like a taxi driver, as it seems to be at least partly the lack of direct face-to-face eye contact that allows the English to shed their inhibitions in these contexts.

This may to some extent be one of those 'human universals' - Catholic priests of all nationalities have long been aware of the effectiveness of the screen in promoting greater openness in confessions, and psychoanalysts' use of the couch to avoid eye contact with their patients cannot be a coincidence, but as usual we are probably talking about a question of degree here, and it seems that the English find it particularly difficult to 'open up' in the absence of such tricks, and are particularly susceptible to the illusion of anonymity that they provide. In fact, if you think about it, my advice to English doctors goes against all the touchy-feely 'communication skills' training they now receive, in which they are told to sit close to the patient, not use their desk as a shield, lean forward, make eye contact, etc.: all measures that seem to me calculated to make the average English person clam up entirely. Which, according to doctors I asked about this, is precisely their effect on most English patients, who do not confess to the doctor what is really bothering them until they are on their way out of the consulting room, usually with their back half turned and their hand on the door-knob.