What is Reddit's opinion of Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour?

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There's a Terrific book called Watching The English by Kate Fox, an anthropologist, who tries to explain the particular quirks of English behaviour from an outsider looking in.

I know I pimp this enough that I should be on comission but buy https://www.amazon.co.uk/Watching-English-Hidden-Rules-Behaviour/dp/0340818867 and read the pub chapter.

There are a multitude of different types of pubs but I don't recognise any from your depiction. The 50-70s in your scene are more likely to be calling the manager of their favourite team a cunt as they are singing folk songs.

Finally, say you did find your ideal pub wtf are you going to go? Observe it from under camo tarp? Once a pair of yanks come in the spell is broken and you're left cosplaying An American Wherewolf in London.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Watching-English-Hidden-Rules-Behaviour/dp/0340818867

This book was mentioned in my autistic support group. No idea though if it'll help though. One person didn't like it, others were interested. If I hear of anything else I'll post here. And apologies if you're not in the UK!!

I remember reading in Watching the English that she would try to secretly figure out who was reading the Daily Mail by discussing news items only featured in that paper that day (while pretending that it was covered by another paper). Apparently she caught a lot of people who pretended to dislike the Daily Mail that way.

So yeah: it's just popular. People know they're not supposed to admit it to everyone, but it's just not much more complicated than that. Sadly enough.

I made the same trip. In some ways there isn't that much of a difference, in some ways its a huge difference. I don't think there's anything specifically on the British higher education system, but just for the culture shock check out Kate Fox's book Watching the English

1) The REF is your new god. Know what 'impact' and 'REFable' paper mean to your discipline. If you want to be promoted you need to orient your research towards publishing in REFable journals, generally those that are considered 3* or 4* in your discipline. Some disciplines, like business, have this as an actual list that you can reference. In others, its more subtle so you'll need to get advice from people in your field. Impact is the ability to say that your work somehow changed the world outside of academia. Very field dependent, could be a patent, could be putting on a tour for school children. You should get training for this, it's worth doing. But obviously you have to balance these factors against the ability to do what you consider to be cutting-edge research that you are proud of.

2) Teaching is SOOOOOO much more bureaucratic. In my university, it takes about 14 months to change an assignment for a class. In all likelyhood, everything you grade will be moderated by another faculty member and you will have to likelihood very boring, day-long meetings to approve grades at the end of the term. I find this an endless frustration and I've figure out which rules I need to follow and which I don't need to.

3) Faculty have far less power that in the US. There is almost no concept of collegial governance. On one hand, this is great. There are very few committee meetings to attend and low service requirements. On the other hand, it's frustrating when dumb decisions get made that you have very little input into. Deans, pro-deans, pro-provosts, ect proliferate.

4) The pay is low and the pension sucks. I would encourage you to join the union and participate in strikes when the time comes to agitate for better pay. But that's up to you. Just keep in mind if you spend your entire career in UK academia, you could expect an annual pension of maybe $25,000 when you retire. Take that into account as you plan your savings and life plans.

5) Other people may disagree with me, but I find the workload much better than in the US and it is much easier to achieve a very nice work/life balance. This may vary between departments and universities, but the normal teaching load at a British university that attracts American profs is lower than most R1s. But, your milage may vary.

Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0340818867/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_-nLCCbATQEJ9B might be worth be worth.

OP got the title wrong, its called "Watching the English" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Watching-English-Hidden-Rules-Behaviour/dp/0340818867

Try the book 'Watching the English' by Kate Fox. I think you may find it enlightening :)

One of the things that helped me the most when I moved here was this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Watching-English-Hidden-Rules-Behaviour/dp/0340818867 It's written by an English anthropologist that decided it's way too inconvenient to travel to some faraway jungle to ply her trade and instead decided to apply her methods on a tribe that's closer at hand: the English. The book is written with a lot of self-deprecating humor, as befits an english text about the english, but it's very insightful.

It was recommended to me by a brit that was quite taken aback by me being so forward as to actually ask him what he does for a living!!! (oh, how naive I once was) :)

Try reading Watching the English by Kate Fox. It’s a brilliant book, and it sheds a lot of light on our culture and traditions.

How does that fit in with the modern definition of purebred when applied to, say, dogs?

As you know, very few modern dogs are anywhere near their original phenotypes (how they look), yet we still refer to them as purebred.

There are many modern characteristics of "Britishness", and anthropologists have studied and published their observations of some of the people.

Does none of that count for anything?

From what I'm given to understand, this is a class issue. As in only upper class Brits are taught to eat this way. And it's not all foods. Peas are apparently the big sticking point here. The tradition is apparently to mush them into the tines of the fork. There was a whole section on this in Watching the English

There appears to be more general food ettiquette here:

I get that we have a shared history. But we have a shared European history. We have a shared history with the commonwealth. We have a shared world history. The built environment is very different across different parts of the country and even within cities the contrast can be stark.

I would probably have more things in common with someone who lives in Paris, Warsaw, or even Istanbul of a similar class than I would with someone who lives in rural England.

My life would not compare to say someone on benefits or to a millionaire.

Specific English-ness does not really bind us together. I read Watching the English by Kate Fox not too long ago. She spent,I believe, a year basically researching our culture. The main points I remember is that we say sorry regardless of fault when she intentionally bumped into them. And that we queue instinctively. I don't remember reading that much else which we all shared.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Watching-English-Hidden-Rules-Behaviour/dp/0340818867

A generalisation, not an assumption - based on the findings of social anthropology ( this is a good read if you're interested). Again, this isn't a dig at Americans or saying that they are incapable of using sarcasm, but that Brits and Americans (and indeed every other culture) have different normal modes of communication. Brits rely on understanding implicit meanings a lot in day to day conversation, while Americans tend to be more "straight talking". It's not that Brits are "better" at sarcasm, just that they're more used to it.

Read Watching The English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour by Kate Fox. It is unerringly accurate.

Edit: Really? Minus one`d for a book suggestion? Gosh.