U or non-U?

Do you lie on the sofa or on the settee? Do you eat pudding or a dessert? Do you wear
spectacles or glasses? What does it matter? Well at one time, in post war Britain, that is after
1945, your use or choice of words was said to be an indicator of the social class to which you
belonged. A lot of nonsense or a matter for serious debate? Or just lighthearted fun? It all
started in 1954 when an article titled Linguistic class-indicators in present-day English by
British linguist Alan Ross, Professor of Linguistics at Birmingham University, appeared in a
learned but obscure Finnish academic journal.

Ross’ article covered differences in word usage, pronunciation, and in writing style, but it was
his thoughts on the differences in vocabulary that received the most attention. He coined the
terms ‘U’ and ‘non-U’ to refer to the differences in English language usage between social
classes. ‘U’ indicated upper class, and ‘non-U’, not upper class, though it focused on the
aspiring middle classes. Ross considered that the middle classes preferred to use fancy or
fashionable words, even neologisms (meaning a newly coined word) and often euphemisms,
in their attempts to make themselves sound more refined. The speech of the working classes
was not dealt with, as in many instances Ross considered they often stuck to the same plain
and traditional words that the upper classes used, since being conscious of their status they
had no need to make themselves sound more refined. Ross added that ‘it is solely by their
language that the upper classes nowadays are distinguished since they are neither cleaner,
richer, nor better-educated than anybody else’.

The argument was that the more elegant euphemism used for any word was usually the non-
upper class thing to say, or, in Mitford’s words, simply ‘non-U’. Thus it was very non-U to
say ‘dentures’; ‘false teeth’ would do. ‘Ill’ was non-U; ‘sick’ was U. The non-U person
‘resides at his home’; the U person ‘lives in his house’, and so on. Nowadays, the distinction
between U words and non-U seems antiquated. Were U words really plainer or ‘better’, or did
the upper classes simply need to use them so as to distinguish themselves from everyone else?

U Non-U
Lunch Dinner (midday meal)
Dinner Evening Meal
Vegetables Greens
Pudding Sweet or dessert
Ice Ice cream
Jam Preserve
(no equivalent, there would be separate
Cruet
containers eg. salt-cellar)
Serviette (unless you are literally in
(Table) Napkin
France)
Sofa Settee or couch
Drawing-room or Sitting-room Lounge or front room
Chimneypiece Mantelpiece
Toilet or WC (unless you are in Italy,
Lavatory or loo
where ‘toiletta’ is U)

1
Looking-glass Mirror
Mad Mental
Decent Civil (behaviour)
(no equivalent) Rude (indecent)
(no equivalent, except possibly ‘civilised’) Cultivated or cultured (people)
Sick Ill
Die Pass on
Graveyard Cemetery
Rich Wealthy
Smart Posh
False teeth Dentures
Dinner jacket Dress suit
Knave Jack (cards)
Scent Perfume
Spectacles Glasses
Writing-paper Note-paper
Wireless Radio
Bike or bicycle Cycle
Riding Horse-riding
Master or Mistress (also prefixed eg. maths- Teacher (children also say ‘Teacher says
mistress) …’)
England (Britain) Britain

Here’s a few phrases that were said to indicate whether a person was upper class or not.

U Non-U
How d’you do? Pleased to meet you (in reply)
How d’you do? (in reply) Very well thank you or Fine
Have some more tea? How is your cup?
No, thank you (in reply) I’m doing nicely, thank you
Yes, thank you (in reply) I don’t mind if I do (though a century ago this was U)
Good health Cheers
It was jolly nice It was very nice
To have one’s bath To take a bath
They’ve a very nice house They’ve (got) a lovely home
He’s working for an exam He’s studying for an exam
(no equivalent) If you don’t mind my mentioning it
What (did you say)? Pardon?
(silence) Pardon (when belching)

2
‘Can a non-U speaker become a U-speaker?’ was once a question of paramount importance
for many Englishmen (and for some of their wives). The answer would have been that an
adult can never attain complete success, that in these matters U-speakers had ears, so that one
single pronunciation, word, or phrase would suffice to brand an apparent U-speaker as
originally non-U (for U-speakers themselves never made ‘mistakes’). Under these
circumstances, efforts to change one’s speech would surely be better abandoned.

The concepts of U and non-U now seem meaningless. Do we still have an upper class? Is
royalty, the old English aristocracy, and landed gentry all that remains? At the mention of U
or non-U nowadays, I would expect to hear ‘what?’. Though if you were indifferent, you
might say ‘whatever’.