{"id":52132,"date":"2024-02-01T01:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T06:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=52132"},"modified":"2024-01-31T09:50:26","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T14:50:26","slug":"qotd-english-hypocrisy-spoken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/02\/01\/qotd-english-hypocrisy-spoken\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: English hypocrisy, spoken"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>Sir Guthrie is a hybrid, a scientist-turned-apparatchik. &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry to be a nuisance,&#8221; he says, in that suave, hypocritical English way, which is at once admirable and disagreeable. This manner of speaking, of never saying quite what you mean, was illustrated in a French book of the time, <em>La Vie anglaise<\/em>, which tried to explain English manners to the French. When an Englishman says, &#8220;We must meet again,&#8221; the author explains, he means: &#8220;I hope never to see you again&#8221;; and when he says, &#8220;I know a little about&#8221;, he means: &#8220;I am an expert in&#8221;, or possibly even &#8220;<em>the<\/em> world-expert in&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Alas, this indirect way of speaking, always tinged with irony and humour, has almost disappeared in favour of a cruder and less amusing manner of communicating. Literal-mindedness has replaced subtle codification, and with it, a people who were once subtle, if sometimes perfidious, have become crass and often aggressive. Irony, which the whole population once both understood and employed, and was so strong an aspect of the national character, has now disappeared, replaced by a disposition to querulousness and indignation.<\/p>\n<p>Theodore Dalrymple, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newenglishreview.org\/blog_direct_link.cfm?blog_id=68795&#038;What%2DSeventy%2DYears%2DHave%2DWrought\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">&#8220;What Seventy Years Have Wrought&#8221;, <em>New English Review<\/em><\/a>, 2019-10-26.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sir Guthrie is a hybrid, a scientist-turned-apparatchik. &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry to be a nuisance,&#8221; he says, in that suave, hypocritical English way, which is at once admirable and disagreeable. This manner of speaking, of never saying quite what you mean, was illustrated in a French book of the time, La Vie anglaise, which tried to explain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4,1117,41],"tags":[262,570,480,400,1289],"class_list":["post-52132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-britain","category-france","category-quotations","tag-culture","tag-england","tag-hypocrisy","tag-language","tag-theodoredalrymple"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-dyQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52132"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87077,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52132\/revisions\/87077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}