BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » British-ness

saturnR · April 2, 2013 8:35 pm

Sherlock is British; end of story. Britishness: If you can juice it & put it into a bottle what would it look like? Brits have said that they can tell when someone is fauxing it or not quite there.

beekeeper · April 2, 2013 8:53 pm

you probably need to tell us that

I'd say it includes a quirky sense of humour and an anarchist disposition though.

Davina · April 2, 2013 10:48 pm

Dry sense of humour. Self-deprecating. Sense of the ridiculous. Talk about the weather, a lot! Good at queuing. Tolerance of 'excentricity'. Word order and grammar (lots of regional differences). Outwardly compliant but surreptitiously non-compliant.

Detecting a non-Brit. Honorary Brits are difficult to detect if they have lived in the UK a long time however non- Brits use words and phrases we don't tend to use or phrase things differently.

Mnemosyne · April 3, 2013 1:38 am

saturnR wrote:
Sherlock is British; end of story. Britishness: If you can juice it & put it into a bottle what would it look like? Brits have said that they can tell when someone is fauxing it or not quite there.

I reckon it would look like a flask of tea if you bottled it.

I agree with Davina. If we were a lonely hearts ad us Brits would always have 'GSOH' stamped on us (I think we need it to remain functional as human beings. If we didn't we'd go insane pretty quickly.) We do love to point out how utterly absurd we all are, all our comedians do nothing *but*. And under the veneer of niceties and good manners you can sense that many of us are boiling under the skin with sarcasm and quiet, anarchic rage... But in a good way. I have experienced both the indifference of our capital city as well as the strange 'Us Vs Them' horror that can be the small village mentality (not everyone is a nice, middle-class eccentric around here... although I fit into that category rather nicely.)

I have seen Brits who cannot 'place' other Brits (I once got asked if I was Australian... I had to tell them I had lived in the UK all my life, it was awkward.)

Sherlock Holmes · April 3, 2013 3:43 am

Sarcasm
Tea
Queuing
Complaining about the weather
Occasional obsession with social niceties

saturnR · April 3, 2013 8:52 am

Mnemosyne wrote:
(not everyone is a nice, middle-class eccentric around here... although I fit into that category rather nicely.)

I have seen Brits who cannot 'place' other Brits (I once got asked if I was Australian... I had to tell them I had lived in the UK all my life, it was awkward.)

Apparently, there is a part of England that basically has the same accent as Australians (maybe some of the first Aussies came from there; don't know). If people are thinking you're Aussie based on your accent, then it could be that you're from that one part of England that has kept that accent to this day. All the English spin-offs (AU accent; NZ accent; US accent; etc...) are regional accents that somehow got expanded to fit an entire country & in the case of US accent, it has gone global

I love how you've equated middle class with nice there is a whole other side to middle class life (keeping up with the joneses; pride & prejudice; etc...) but I get what you mean - it's just funny the context that it was presented in.

beekeeper · April 3, 2013 9:39 am

"Apparently, there is a part of England that basically has the same accent as Australians".

Ha sounds like an urban myth, sorry! Same with the US. We weren't the only ones to export citizens, you see. I'd say to the British ear Australian might be closest to a weird mix between Irish and maybe south eastern english, but they are such different accents I think you'd struggle to find a place which combined the two!

The phrase "nice middle class" is a very (English) British one and to be fair it is tongue in cheek.

I think its also worth point out that Britain is a very regional place and the big divisions are reflected in the humour. I can always spot a Londoner, say, because they will usually get my jokes-even though I haven't lived there for years. Its true to say that humour is important but its also the case that most regions of Britain consider the humour of other regions to be puerile and unsophisticated.

saturnR · April 3, 2013 10:12 am

beekeeper wrote:
but they are such different accents I think you'd struggle to find a place which combined the two!

Yeah, but they did come on a boat Kind of boring; nothing to do for a year and a half; just get very sick all the time. Lots of spare time to learn each other's accents, swap culture and play practical jokes on people

Joking. Yeah, I knew that myth was too good to be true. I was hoping that there was a part of England that sounded Aussie so when people go where are you from? I can say "I'm from Kent or something" rather than "I'm from Australia "

Though of course, as soon as they start asking me geographcal questions about England (like how many states do you guys have?) then I would be screwed Australia is easy seven states, nice and easy.

Last edited by saturnR (April 3, 2013 10:13 am)

beekeeper · April 3, 2013 10:23 am

hahaha British states. Jesus thats a complex one.

We have four basic states, really, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

But then that depends on whether you are talking "Great Britain" which technically is Wales, England and Scotland , or the UK, which includes Northern Ireland. Plus islands. And then there's the commonwealth. Also no Brits really understand this stuff anyway. So if cornered I'd just say, "oh its complex.". TBH if you are under 35 actually knowing this stuff would raise suspicions anyway ;-)

Last edited by beekeeper (April 3, 2013 10:24 am)

erunyauve · April 3, 2013 10:41 am

Classic understatement. ('Not good?' 'Bit not good.')

saturnR · April 3, 2013 10:52 am

beekeeper wrote:
hahaha British states. Jesus thats a complex one.

We have four basic states, really, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Yah, but your states are also countries. We don't have that problem here. Western Australia tried to take off & be its own separate country but the other states wooed it back by saying "come join us anyway & if you don't like it, you can walk away"; the other states have since banded together & not allowed WA to walk away

Davina · April 3, 2013 4:00 pm

Our countries in the UK are divided into counties. That's the nearest you'll get to a state (or Province in Canada).

On the Aussie accent bit I will add my tuppenyworth. There is a lot of Cockney in the Australian accent. I am originally from the eastern boundary of a greater London. My dad is technically a Cockney, although he doesn't have a strong accent. I went to University in the Midlands (Loughborough actually) and then came back down south. When I started working as a teacher all the children thought I was Australian, literally all of them! I had, I guess, a mish-mash accent. None of them thought I came from what is basically East London.

Being British is a tricky thing but one thing I will say is please don't refer to someone who is Welsh, Scottish or Irish as being English! I see the terms used interchangeably in some press (US particularly lax I'm afraid).

Last edited by Davina (April 3, 2013 4:00 pm)

beekeeper · April 3, 2013 5:45 pm

well they are and they aren't countries. I'd say that they are functionally states though Scottish people might kill me for that ;-). They don't have constitutional independence. If I had to explain how they actually functioned I'd use the word state as it conveys the idea better, I think.

And oh god yes on the English / Welsh/Scottish thing. I am "born in the sound of Bow bells" Londoner, living in Wales but lived in Edinburgh for five years. Just don't do it! There are strong feelings there!

Interesting re the cockney thing, that's the accent I grew up with too and now you mention it, yes I'd agree thats in there.

Last edited by beekeeper (April 3, 2013 7:57 pm)

beekeeper · April 3, 2013 7:56 pm

oh and re "Sherlock is British, end of.". yk there is a strong argument that his mother may have been French (from canon). . Just to chuck a fly in there ;-)

The Doctor · April 6, 2013 10:57 am

beekeeper wrote:
oh and re "Sherlock is British, end of.". yk there is a strong argument that his mother may have been French (from canon). . Just to chuck a fly in there ;-)

Well, yeah, but th eEuropean upper-class is mixed thoroughly British-French-German anyway?!

saturnR · April 6, 2013 11:13 pm

The Doctor wrote:
but th eEuropean upper-class is mixed thoroughly British-French-German anyway?!

yep, & they couldn't work out their finances coz they're all related to each other so they decide to work out their finances across two world wars. I'm just saying

beekeeper · April 7, 2013 11:13 pm

well no its not mixed really, not any more. An awful lot less than anyone else in Britain. Our upper class is absolutely overwhelimingly white British born.

lol its interesting to see the perceptions of us coming over from Australia! I'm genuinely interested, I'm sure we're as wrong about Australians you know (until recently I honestly believed "I am Australian" was the official national anthem, didn't realise the Seekers had actually written it). But where did you learn this stuff?

I'd say, aside from knowing quite a few Australians, the mainstay of my knowledge of Australia is Neighbours. Sorry about that.

Davina · April 7, 2013 11:58 pm

Well the Royal Family is less British/British born than you would think, perhaps.
Prince Phillip was actually born in Greece, exiled as a child and educated in part in France.
The Duchess of Gloucester (Birgitte) is Danish born. Her dad was a lawyer, not royalty/nobility.
The Duke of Kent's and Prince Michael of Kent's mother was a Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark.
Princess Michael of Kent was born Baroness Marie Von Reibnitz and was born in the Sudetenland which is now part of the Czech Republic.

Helena Bonham Carter's partner is Tim Burton. (Yes, she is nobility).

The Astors started off in Germany, went to America and then some came to the UK and became peers.

saturnR · April 8, 2013 8:21 am

beekeeper wrote:
well no its not mixed really, not any more. An awful lot less than anyone else in Britain. Our upper class is absolutely overwhelimingly white British born.

lol its interesting to see the perceptions of us coming over from Australia! But where did you learn this stuff?

I'd say, aside from knowing quite a few Australians, the mainstay of my knowledge of Australia is Neighbours. Sorry about that.

Our curriculum/syllabus writers have yet to figure out that Aussies actually have their own history besides England so learning about "the motherland" & Western Europe in general is a prerequisite to getting through high school.

We know more about you (& a lot of it is embellished as well so we know the Hercules Allmighty version of your history) than your syllabus/curriculum cares to know about us because we are the chicks and you're the hen - hen has lost count of all her many chicks but us baby chooks have our eyes firmly on hen.

beekeeper · April 8, 2013 9:05 am

So your knowledge is basically school knowledge then?

We're a bit more complex than I think your school is teaching you , yk . Just like you guys are not all ex-convicts living in a permentantly sunny close in Melbourne.

Last edited by beekeeper (April 8, 2013 9:10 am)