In these days of penurious peers and vanishing stately homes, how can one tell whether an Englishman is a genuine member of the Upper Class? Last week, in a slim anthology of aristocratic manners edited by aristocratic Novelist Nancy Mitford (Noblesse Oblige; Hamish Hamilton), England got an answer that has managed to stir up everyone from Novelist Graham Greene to Actor John Loder. Not since Humorist Stephen Potter launched the cult of gamesmanship had the nation been so obsessed as it was over the difference between U (Upper Class) and non-U.
Though Noblesse Oblige is obviously the definitive work on the subject, the controversy really began with a learned paper, published in Helsinki by Philologist Alan S. C. Ross of the University of Birmingham. "Today," said Ross, "a member of the upper class is, for instance, not necessarily better educated, cleaner or richer than someone not of this class."
The tags that set him apart are minor—"the games of real tennis and piquet, an aversion to high tea, having one's cards engraved (not printed) and, in some cases, a dislike of certain comparatively modern inventions such as the telephone, the cinema and the wireless." But in general, added Ross, the best way to tell the U person is by his way of speaking.
Don't Take a Bath. Though Philologist Ross admitted that "silence [is] perhaps the most favorite of all U usages today." the upper classes do have to open their mouths sometimes. They may repress a shudder at saying "Cheers" when drinking, but they will flatly refuse to say the non-U "God bless!" They do not "take a bath"; the U version is "have one's bath." U usage is a nought for the U.S. zero, and what? for pardon! The word civil has a special meaning for the upper class: it is "used to approve the behavior of a non-U person in that the latter has appreciated the difference between U and non-U, e.g., 'The guard was certainly very civil.' "
"How is your cup?" is the non-U equivalent of "Have some more tea?" The reply "I don't mind if I do" is definitely non-U, but "this was U about a century ago." The U speaker eats lunch in the middle of the day ("luncheon is old-fashioned U") and dinner at night. He never wears a dress-suit, and the "sentence 'Shall we wear evening dress?' would not be possible, the appropriate expression being 'Are we going to change?' "To answer the salutation "How d'you do?" with "Quite well, thank you" is as non-U as saying ill, mirror, notepaper, radio, serviette, toilet-paper, wealthy and lounges for the U words sick, lookingglass, writing paper, wireless, table-napkin, lavatory-paper, rich and halls. The U reply to "How d'you do?" is "How d'you do?"