Re:Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to...
by 082349872349872 on Sunday December 11, 2022 @04:30PM
(#33947757)
if you're thinking U vs non-U it was mid-XX, and a bit of a U joke[0] that non-U peeps took way too seriously.
I wonder: has anyone made a list of all the different ways we Sneetches have besides our bellies, to distinguish in- and out-groups?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English
[0] when Jilly Cooper shows up in the References of a Wikipedia page it's all a bit of a lark
Or it's about signaling that you're "in the know" with the in-group.
I read some list from (I believe) the 1800s that listed the different vocabulary used by aristocratic vs. middle class English people. It wasn't anything fancy (e.g. graveyard = aristocrat, cemetery = middle class). But as soon as that list was published and the middle class strivers knew to imitate those parts of the dialect, I'm sure the aristocrats quickly deprecated those signals.