The Outgoing Spirit - Across the Pond: An Englishman's View of America - page 25

was “not at all a disgrace,” though some of the more flamboyant Romantic poets “laid it on
a bit thick.” Malt whisky, J. S. Bach and ravishingly handsome male undergraduates “could
be worse.” “Not a little boring” meant mind-numbingly monotonous.
If the British upper classes hold that it is not good form to gush, it is because emotion
is seen a form of weakness, and to display such weakness before one's social inferiors or
colonial subjects is to risk a bullet through the brain. Emotional constipation can save your
life. Those who do not have their tender feelings beaten out of them at school may be sub-
jected to a more lethal kind of beating in the long run. Understatement thus has political
roots. It can sometimes be pressed to bizarre extremes. A few years ago, an Englishman
who happened to be in Japan when the country was struck by an earthquake, tsunami, large-
scale fires and a threat of nuclear meltdown, was asked about the situation on BBC tele-
vision. “Well,” he replied, “it's not very nice and I rather wish it hadn't happened.” “Not
very nice” is British for “unbelievably awful.” When an American is asked how she is, she
might reply, “Pretty good.” A typical British or Irish response would be, “Not too bad.” Or
alternatively, “Can't grumble,” a statement which has never actually prevented the British
from grumbling. It would take a collision with a comet to do that.
Amping Up, Playing Down
The American impulse is to amplify, while the British habit is to diminish. When thanked,
an American might say, “It's my pleasure,” “You're very welcome” or, “You bet,” whereas
the British, who tend naturally to the negative and low-profiled, tend to murmur, “Don't
mention it,” “Not at all,” “No problem,” or even the hideous “No probs.” In an unintended
put-down, they imply that they have done nothing worth being thanked for—that being
helpful to you does not count as an event, and that your gratitude is therefore both super-
fluous and embarrassing.
“It can't do any harm” in British English usually means that it is precious beyond words.
The British, unlike Americans, speak of “popping” in and out of places. To “pop” into a
store is to be there so briefly as not really to be there at all. It is a very British kind of self-
effacement. There is never a catastrophe in the United Kingdom, just “a bit of a problem.”
Neither, as we shall see later, are there any catastrophes in the United States, though for
rather different reasons. Instead, they are known as “challenges.” It sounds so much less
catastrophic. The instinct to play down is as common among the Irish as the British. An
Irish acquaintance once told me that he was doing fine, except for “a touch of cancer.”
One thing one is supposed to play down in Britain is one's offspring. It is generally con-
sidered distasteful to praise one's own children, which is less true in the United States.
There are dubious as well as admirable motives for this reticence. The British do not praise
their own children rather as they would not boast about their farmhouse in Provence, which
implies that they regard their children as counting among their possessions. But at least it