MATCH UP DIALOGUE PARTS                           

PART 1 (first sentence)

Drinking in a pub with one’s father is considered by a vast majority to be a rite of passage in this country.	What a nice duvet, honey! And the saleswoman says it’s real Chinese silk!	Can I get some non-prescriptive drugs for my flu? Although I am really not into taking antibiotics.	I am the rightful owner of this house! I am banishing you two from my doorstep!
God Almighty, stop our family feud!	He’s a notoriously well-known journalist. It was he who published dis-paraging news about the Royal Family a year ago.	He’s a paragon of virtue. He’s trustworthy to a fault. He’ll never do anything illicit.	According to the new census, the number of pledges of affiliation to political parties has decreased.
He speaks some sort of incomprehensible jargon. Do you understand him?	He has a peculiar talent of putting up stag nights, hen nights, bachelor and bachelorette parties.	I am signing my kids up for tennis. It’s gonna be an extra-curricular activity for them.	Take this ring as a token of my gratitude.
Yuck! What is this gooey mess? Why are you so bleary-eyed?	That’s just Sod’s law in its purest! I worked my butt off and at the test a got the only topic I did not do revision for!	The algebra is doing my head in! I’ll end up killing my self over these equations!	I see this law as a frenzied yet unsuccessful attempt by the Government to curb inflation.

PART 2 (reply, reaction)

Don’t take her words at face value. This might not be reliable information! And it’s too expensive.	I see you still persist in the notion that they are gonna be professional athletes some day.	Thank you, Princess. The task of freeing you from the dragon was an arduous and onerous one.	I think it’s due to the curtailment of unemployment and the lessening of economic hardship.
On the whole I do, I have a penchant for languages.	Well, let him do it. I, for myself, am pants at organizing anything.	Yes, it implies the onset of adulthood!	I disagree. This was a landmark decision.
I am sorry, but I can confidently say that some penicillin is obligatory for your condition.	I agree. I don’t know why our families are making such a big fuss about that old quarrel!	Father, admittedly, I got married without your per-mission, but don’t put us through an ordeal of find-ing a new place to live!	But he speaks so smugly and pompously of his own integrity that I don’t want to be his friend.
You were away the whole night and we’ve seized upon an opportunity to make our own bread.	Well, this is just as well. I failed my test, too. We’ll be studying together to take the make-up.	I think you are entitled to some rest. I know you are mathematically challenged, but sleep a little and tomorrow you’ll swot like mad again.	But there was no truth whatsoever in his article! And it was met with such benign indifference by the Queen!

RITES OF PASSAGE – PART 1

 

THE DEFAULT-RELIGION RULE

 

The Elizabethan courtier John Lyly claimed that the English were God’s ‘chosen and peculiar people’. Well, if we are, this was certainly a rather peculiar choice on the Almighty’s part, as we are probably the least religious people on Earth. In surveys, up to 88 per cent of English people tick the box saying that they ‘belong’ to one or another of the Christian denominations – usually the Church of England – but in practice only about 15 per cent of these ‘Christians’ actually go to church on a regular basis.

 

In any case, the Church of England is the least religious church on Earth. It is notoriously woolly-minded, tolerant to a fault and amiably non-prescriptive. To put yourself down as ‘C of E’ (we prefer to use this abbreviation whenever possible, in speech as well as on forms, as the word ‘church’ sounds a bit religious, and ‘England’ might seem a bit patriotic) on a census or application form, as is customary, does not imply any religious observance or beliefs whatsoever – not even a belief in the existence of God.

 

THE BENIGN-INDIFFERENCE RULE

 

We are not a nation of explicit, unequivocal atheists. Nor are we agnostics. Both of these imply a degree of interest in whether or not there is a deity – enough either to reject or question the notion. Most English people are just not much bothered about it.

In opinion polls, about 60 per cent of the population answer ‘yes’ when asked if they believe in God, but Dr Carey is right not to take this response at face value. When I asked people about it, I found that many of them answered ‘yes’ because they:

• are ‘not particularly religious but sort of believe in Something’;
• are vaguely willing to accept that there might be a God, so saying ‘no’ would be a bit too emphatic;
• would quite like to think that there is a God, even though on the whole it seems rather unlikely;
• don’t really know but might as well give Him the benefit of the doubt;
• haven’t really thought about it much to be honest, but yeah, sure, whatever.

HATCHINGS, MATCHINGS AND DISPATCHINGS

 

Ambivalence Rules

 

So what, if anything, is distinctively English about English rites of passage? What, if anything, might seem odd or different to a visitor or immigrant from even a closely related modern Western culture? I started by taking the rather obvious step of asking a few of them. ‘It’s not the customs or traditions,’ said a perceptive American informant, who had herself participated in weddings (one as bride, one as mother-of) on both sides of the Atlantic. ‘You’re right, they’re pretty much the same. It’s more the attitude people have, something about their whole manner. It’s hard to describe, but the English just don’t seem to participate fully in a wedding the way we do – they always seem a bit, I don’t know, a bit detached, kind of cynical but awkward at the same time – just not really into it, somehow.’

 

The problem is that rites of passage are by definition social occasions, involving a sustained period of obligatory interaction with other humans – and, worse, many are social occasions at which ‘private’ family matters (pair-bonding, bereavement, transition to adulthood) become ‘public’. On top of all that, one is expected to express a bit of emotion. Not much, admittedly: the English do not go in for extravagant weeping and wailing at funerals, frenzied joy at weddings, or excessively gooey sentimentality at christenings; but even the minimal, token display of feeling that is customary at English rites of passage can be an ordeal for many of us.

 

Hatching Rules and Initiation Rites

 

Only around a quarter of the English have their babies christened. This perhaps tells us more about English indifference to religion than about our attitude to children, but half of us do get married in church, and most of us end up having a Christian funeral of some sort, so the relative unpopularity of christenings may reflect a certain cultural apathy towards children as well. It is not as though those who do not go in for christenings compensate with some other kind of momentous celebration to welcome the new arrival. The birth of a child is a positive event, certainly, but the English do not make nearly as much of a big social fuss about it as most other cultures. The proud new father may buy a few rounds of drinks for his mates in the pub (a custom curiously known as ‘wetting the baby’s head’, although the baby is not present, which is probably just as well), but then the English will happily seize upon almost any excuse for a celebratory drink or six. The child is not even the subject of conversation for very long: once the father has been subjected to a bit of good-natured ribbing, and a brief moaning ritual about the curtailment of freedom, sleepless nights, loss of libido and general noise and mess associated with babies, the topic is regarded as pretty much exhausted, and the head-wetters resume their normal pub-talk.

 

Kid-talk and the One-downmanship Rules

 

English parents are as proud of their children as parents in any other culture, but you would never know this from the way they talk about them. The modesty rules not only forbid boasting about one’s offspring, but specifically prescribe mock-denigration of them. Even the proudest and most doting of English parents must roll their eyes, sigh heavily, and moan to each other about how noisy, tiresome, lazy, hopeless and impossible their children are. At a party, I heard one mother try to pay another a compliment: ‘I hear your Peter’s doing 10 GCSEs – he must be terribly clever . . .’ This was deflected with a snorting laugh and a disparaging complaint: ‘Well, he’ll have to be, as he certainly never seems to do any work – just plays those mindless computer games and listens to that godawful music . . .’ To which the first mother replied, ‘Oh, don’t tell me – Sam’s bound to fail all his: the only thing he’s any good at is skateboarding, and they don’t have A-levels in that, as I keep telling him, not that he takes a blind bit of notice of anything I say, of course . . .’ The children in question might have been academic paragons, and both mothers perfectly aware of this – indeed, the lack of any real anxiety in their tones suggested that they were confidently expecting good results – but it would have been bad manners to say so.

 

The Invisible-puberty Rule

 

This is just as well, as our culture tends to regard children as something of a tiresome encumbrance, and adolescents as a positive nuisance. Adolescents are seen as somehow both vulnerable and dangerous: objects of concern, but also potentially threatening; in need of protection, but also in need of restraint – and just generally troublesome. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that only minority faiths celebrate the onset of puberty in any significant way. The advent of this awkward, embarrassing, hormonally challenged phase of life is not widely regarded as a matter for celebration. The English prefer to bury their heads in the sand and try to pretend that it isn’t happening. The C of E does offer a ‘Confirmation’ ceremony at the appropriate age (traditionally between eleven and fourteen), but this is even less popular than christening, and there is no secular equivalent, so the vast majority of English children have no official rite of passage to mark their transition to adolescence.

 

Deprived of their rightful rites, English adolescents tend to invent their own unofficial initiation rituals – which usually involve getting into trouble for illegal drinking, experimenting with illicit recreational drugs, shoplifting, graffiti-spraying, joy-riding, etc. – or find other ways of drawing attention to their new sexual status: we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe, for example.

 

But they are not formally ‘welcomed’ as fully-fledged members of our society until after they have struggled through puberty, when the next official rite of passage, the eighteenth-birthday celebration, marks their transition to adulthood. For some, there is a mini rite of passage at seventeen, when they pass their driving test and get a driving licence, but eighteen is the age at which the English are officially entitled to vote, get married without parental consent, have homosexual sex, watch X-rated films and, most importantly for many, buy alcoholic drinks. Most will have been unofficially drinking, having whatever kind of sex they choose and watching ‘adult’ films for some years; and many will have left school at sixteen and may be working full time, possibly even married or co-habiting, pregnant or with a baby of their own. But the eighteenth birthday is still regarded as an important landmark, and an excuse to have a big noisy party, or at least to get even more drunk than on an average Saturday night.

 

The Gap-Year ‘Ordeal’

 

Among the educated classes, the eighteenth-birthday rites are now often followed by the Gap Year, a passage between school and university involving a more prolonged ‘liminal’ period, in which it is customary for young people to spend some months travelling abroad, often incorporating some kind of charity work (helping Peruvian villagers to build a school, working in a Romanian orphanage, saving a rainforest, digging a well, etc.) and generally seeing the Real (i.e. poor) World and having meaningful, character-building Experiences. The Gap-Year trip is seen as a sort of initiation ordeal – a less arduous version of the custom in some tribal societies of sending adolescent males off into the jungle or wilderness for a time to endure a few pains and hardships and prove themselves worthy of official incorporation into adult society.

 

Among the English upper- and upper-middle classes, this has often already been achieved by banishing one’s offspring to character-building boarding schools for their entire adolescence. Until relatively recently, the upper class and aristocracy were determinedly anti-intellectual (a trait they shared, along with a penchant for sport and gambling, with the working classes), and rather looked down upon the middle classes’ reverence for higher education. Their sons might go to university, but this was not regarded as essential – a spell in the army or at agricultural college or something would do just as well – and academic achievement was even less important for their daughters.

 

Gap-Year initiates of all classes are expected to come back from their Experience transformed into mature, socially aware, reliable adults, ready to take on the enormous challenge and responsibility of living in a university hall of residence, doing their own laundry and occasionally having to open a tin of beans when they come back from the pub to find that the cafeteria is shut. First-year university students who have ‘done a Gap Year’ regard themselves as superior to those who have come ‘straight from school’ – more grown-up and worldly wise. They have a tendency to talk rather smugly about how much older they feel, compared to the immature, silly, un-Gap-yeared freshers.

 

Student Rites

 

Freshers’ Week Rules

 

For the privileged university-goers, the eighteenth-birthday rites, A-level exams and possibly Gap-year ‘ordeal’ are followed by another important rite of passage known as Freshers’ Week. The initiates are first separated from their families, their familiar surroundings and their social status as schoolchildren. Most arrive at university accompanied by one or both parents, in cars crammed with objects from their old life (clothes, books, CDs, duvet, favourite pillow, posters, photos, teddy-bear) and specially purchased objects for their new life (shiny new kettle, mug, bowl, plate, spoon, towel and so on).

 

The fresher initiates barely have time to Blu-tac a few posters to their walls before the ‘liminal’ phase begins and they are hurled into a disorienting, noisy, exhausting succession of parties and fairs and events, staged by a bewildering variety of student clubs and societies – sporting, social, theatrical, artistic, political – all competing to sign them up for an impossible number of extra-curricular activities. These ‘official’ events are interspersed with pub-crawls, late-night pizzas and bleary-eyed, rambling coffee-sessions at three in the morning (as well as endless queuing to register for courses, obtain student identity cards and sign incomprehensible forms). This week-long ‘liminal’ phase is a period of cultural remission and inversion, in which the initiate’s senses are disturbed by alcohol and sleeplessness, social borders and categories are crossed and blurred, former identity is challenged and disrupted, and acceptance in the new social world is sought through pledges of affiliation to student clubs and societies. By the end of the week, the initiate has achieved a new social identity: he or she is incorporated as a student into the student ‘tribe’ – and finally allowed to rest a bit, calm down, and start attending lectures and participating in normal student life.

 

Exam and Graduation Rules

 

The next significant transitional rites for students are final exams, post-exam celebrations and graduation ceremonies: the passage from studenthood to proper adulthood. Studenthood can itself be seen as a rather prolonged ‘liminal’ stage – a sort of limbo state where one is neither an adolescent nor a fully-fledged adult. University effectively postpones true adulthood for an extra three years. As limbo states go, this is quite a pleasant one: students have almost all of the privileges of full adult members of society, but few of the responsibilities. English students moan and whine constantly to each other about their ‘impossible’ workload, and are always having what they call ‘an essay crisis’ (meaning they have to write an essay) – but the demands of most degree courses are not very onerous compared to those of an average full-time job.

The ordeal of final exams provides an excuse for even more therapeutic moaning-rituals, with their own unwritten rules. The modesty rule is important: even if you are feeling reasonably calm and confident about an exam, it is not done to say so – you must pretend to be full of anxiety and self-doubt, convinced that you are going to fail, because it goes without saying (although you say it repeatedly) that you have not done anywhere near enough work. Only the most arrogant, pompous and socially insensitive students will ever admit to having done enough revision for their exams; such people are rare, and usually heartily disliked.

 

If you have clearly swotted like mad, you can admit this only in a self-deprecatory context: ‘I’ve worked my butt off, but I’m still completely pants at genetics – I just know I’m going to screw up – and anyway there’s bound to be a question on the one thing I haven’t revised properly. Just Sod’s law, isn’t it?’ Any expression of confidence must be counterbalanced by an expression of insecurity: ‘I think I’m OK on the sociology paper, but statistics is just totally doing my head in . . .’

 

Matching Rites

 

At the beginning of this chapter, I pointed out that there is little about the format of an average English wedding that would seem odd or unfamiliar to a visitor from any other modern Western culture: we have the usual stag and hen nights (Americans call them bachelor and bachelorette parties); church or civil ceremony followed by reception; champagne; bride in white; wedding cake ditto; bridesmaids (optional); best man; speeches; special food; drink; dancing (optional); family tensions and feuds (more or less compulsory); etc. From an anthropologist’s perspective, an English wedding also has much in common even with exotic tribal marriage rites that would seem odd to most modern Western eyes. Despite superficial differences, they all conform to van Gennep’s basic rites-of-passage formula – separation, transition, incorporation – by which people are ceremoniously shunted from one sociocultural/life-cycle category to the next.

 

The Money-talk Taboo

 

When the tensions are over money, which they often are – not least because weddings themselves tend to be expensive affairs – the embarrassment factor is doubled. Unlike most other cultures, we persist in the notion that love and marriage have nothing to do with money – and that any mention of money would ‘lower the tone’ of the event. It is customary, for example, for the male partner to fork out about a month’s salary on an engagement ring (in America it can be double that, or even more, as an engagement ring is seen as a more overt symbol of the male’s status as a provider) but to ask or talk about how much the ring cost would be offensive.

 

The cost of the wedding itself is traditionally borne by the bride’s parents, but in these days of late marriages is now often met or at least shared by the couple themselves and/or grandparents or other relatives. But whoever has footed the lion’s share of the bill, the groom will usually, in his speech, politely thank the bride’s parents for ‘this wonderful party’ or some such euphemism – the words ‘money’ or ‘paid’ are not used. If the groom’s parents, grandparents or uncle have contributed by paying for, say, the champagne or the honeymoon, they may be thanked for ‘providing’ or ‘giving’ these items – to use the words ‘paying for’ would imply that money was involved. We all know perfectly well that money is involved, but it would be bad manners to draw attention to the fact.

WRITE A DIALOGUE WITH THE WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS BELOW. TOPIC: YOU ARE AN OPINION POLL DISTRUBUTOR TALKING TO A PERSON WHOM YOU HAVE TO GET TO FILL OUT YOUR SURVEY

 

rite of passage

peculiar

denomination

notoriously

to a fault

amiably

whatsoever

imply

deity

opinion poll

to take at face value

on the whole

seize upon

onset of

admittedly

 

WRITE A COMPOSITION WITH THE WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS BELOW. 

TOPIC: DO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE HAVE TO GO TO CHURCH IF THEY ARE CHRISTIANS?

 

do not go in for smth

frenzied

obligatory

doting

paragon

end up doing

make a big fuss about

just as well

gooey

reliable

do laundry

rightful

entitled to

ordeal

christening

vast majority

penchant for

banish to

to sign smb up for

 

CHAPTER 14

RITES OF PASSAGE

PART II

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