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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2015 3:12:34 GMT -5
What a delight it is to contribute to this forum whose correspondents invariably subscribe to upper-class standards of decorum!
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Post by ahinton on Sept 6, 2015 6:15:41 GMT -5
What a delight it is to contribute to this forum whose correspondents invariably subscribe to upper-class standards of decorum! What are they? What makes them "upper-class" and to what is that "upper"? |
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Post by Gerard on Sept 6, 2015 9:57:59 GMT -5
What are they? What makes them "upper-class" and to what is that "upper"? Dear Mr. H: if you have to ask then you may not. |
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Post by ahinton on Sept 6, 2015 15:21:57 GMT -5
What are they? What makes them "upper-class" and to what is that "upper"? Dear Mr. H: if you have to ask then you may not. May not what? Ask? As one of the mentioned contributors (and, let's face it, thre are so very few of them here even among the tiny membership of this forum), it would seem that this is the least of my entitlements here. The notion of "upper-class" is deeply off-putting to any worthy contributor worth his/her salt if misunderstood; I had thought that the very principles of this forum were such as to rise above any sense of "class" distinction of this kind. "Standards", yes. But "upper-class" ones? Well, having been raised in what might be described as, at highest, lower-middle-class ones and in a music-free environment at that, I cannot associate myself with anything "upper-class", so if my contributions here are regarded as inappropriate on the grounds of that lack of "upper-class" clout, please let me know and I will resign my membership forthwith. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2015 6:55:42 GMT -5
So Mr. H the only logical conclusion is that you were pretending to ask but were not in fact doing so . . .
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Post by ahinton on Sept 7, 2015 19:13:39 GMT -5
So Mr. H the only logical conclusion is that you were pretending to ask but were not in fact doing so . . . I pretended nothing. I asked of these so-called "standards" "What are they? What makes them "upper-class" and to what is that "upper"? I added "The notion of "upper-class" is deeply off-putting to any worthy contributor worth his/her salt if misunderstood; I had thought that the very principles of this forum were such as to rise above any sense of "class" distinction of this kind. "Standards", yes. But "upper-class" ones? Well, having been raised in what might be described as, at highest, lower-middle-class ones and in a music-free environment at that, I cannot associate myself with anything "upper-class", so if my contributions here are regarded as inappropriate on the grounds of that lack of "upper-class" clout, please let me know and I will resign my membership forthwith." Your "logical conclusion" is therefore demonstrably neither logical nor conclusive. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2015 7:52:12 GMT -5
Since you do, I mean.
I found the phrase in a TLS from 2001. Something to do with Sir Winston if I remember rightly. I am asking you the membership what difference it would make. Of course one should distinguish between 1) the landed gentry, 2) the aristocracy, and 3) the nouveau riche should one not. In the new world there will be no money, so no rich people, and so no people more powerful than any others. A good thing that will it not be. But will there still be a kind of upper class? Mr. H's first response was along those intended lines. Gerard's may not was evidently intended to stop him asking automatical questions again!
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Post by ahinton on Sept 8, 2015 8:36:38 GMT -5
Of course one should distinguish between 1) the landed gentry, 2) the aristocracy, and 3) the nouveau riche When the context requires it, yes - but here it doesn't, since the subject under discussion, namely the standards or presentation, argument and the rest on this forum know no such boundaries; they are not affected or governed by financial consideration of any kind and they therefore exist on the merits of their content alone. In the new world there will be no money, so no rich people, and so no people more powerful than any others. Oh, here we go again! One might well argue that "For, oh, for, oh, the hobby-horse is forgot" never seems to work here, since some of those same hobby-horses keep being trotted out! What "new world"? Achieved and operated by whom, how and with whose consent? A good thing that will it not be. Just a slight word order amendement is needed here - to "a good thing that it will not be" - methinks. But will there still be a kind of upper class? As I aksed previously, "upper" to what? Mr. H's first response was along those intended lines. Only to those insistent upon wilfully and woefully misinterpreting it; it would take quite a leap of blind faith to extrapolate such a conclusion from what I wrote! Gerard's may not was evidently intended to stop him asking automatical questions again! I have no idea what Gerard's intention might have been. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2015 11:35:06 GMT -5
If I may address your opening post directly, Sydney: What a delight it is to contribute to this forum whose correspondents invariably subscribe to upper-class standards of decorum! Lord Clark of 'Civilisation' famously concluded that there had been a little flattening at the top. ‘One mustn’t overrate the culture of what used to be called “top people” before the wars,’ he observed. ‘They had charming manners, but they were as ignorant as swans.’ Kenneth Clark (1903–83) often gave the impression that he had descended from Olympus, which gave him a slightly comic air of patrician remoteness. And yet he had less time for the early twentieth-century upper classes to which he might have seemed to belong than he had for the Vikings! The Spectator - Why the BBC will never match Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation - No modern critic would dare to match his sweeping statements – indeed, few were up to it in his dayIn the final moments of the final episode of 'Civilisation', Lord Clark identified courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos, as a defining feature of civilisation. YouTube - The final moments of the final episode of Civilisation by Kenneth ClarkAnd many people when you mention the word 'civilisation' think of something like this. Well, it isn't to be sneezed at. But it isn't enough to keep a civilisation alive, because it exists solely in the present. YouTube - Kenneth Clark's Civilisation 03: Romance and RealityIs this what you mean, Sydney? |
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Post by ahinton on Sept 8, 2015 12:51:09 GMT -5
If I may address your opening post directly, Sydney: What a delight it is to contribute to this forum whose correspondents invariably subscribe to upper-class standards of decorum! Lord Clark of 'Civilisation' famously concluded that there had been a little flattening at the top. ‘One mustn’t overrate the culture of what used to be called “top people” before the wars,’ he observed. ‘They had charming manners, but they were as ignorant as swans.’ Kenneth Clark (1903–83) often gave the impression that he had descended from Olympus, which gave him a slightly comic air of patrician remoteness. And yet he had less time for the early twentieth-century upper classes to which he might have seemed to belong than he had for the Vikings! The Spectator - Why the BBC will never match Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation - No modern critic would dare to match his sweeping statements – indeed, few were up to it in his dayIn the final moments of the final episode of 'Civilisation', Lord Clark identified courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos, as a defining feature of civilisation. YouTube - The final moments of the final episode of Civilisation by Kenneth ClarkAnd many people when you mention the word 'civilisation' think of something like this. Well, it isn't to be sneezed at. But it isn't enough to keep a civilisation alive, because it exists solely in the present. YouTube - Kenneth Clark's Civilisation 03: Romance and RealityIs this what you mean, Sydney? Whilst I have no idea what Sydney might mean by this, your reference to "civilisation" reminds me in the meantime of Mohandas Gandhi's response to a question as to what he thought about Western civilisation, namely that it would be a good idea... |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2016 4:32:27 GMT -5
Is life mostly froth and bubble do members agree?
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Post by ahinton on Feb 27, 2016 11:13:33 GMT -5
Is life mostly froth and bubble do members agree? This particular member doesn't, if for no better reason than that, for most of us at least, it's whatever each one makes of it although, that said, the direct relationship between the thread topic and the OP is unclear, not least because what is supposedly meant by "upper-class" is not revealed here (notwithstanding the largely obfuscatory nature of much of what has preceded this post). Is your intent to refer to the final years of pre-university schooling and, if not, then to what and why? If not - and if it purports to be some kind of reference to the perceived class strcture of yesteryear, I cannot answer the question in any case, since I am not a member of what was once thought by some to be the "upper classes" as neatly pilloried by Noël Coward in the song The Stately Homes of England, from his musical play Operette, in around 1930. Readers might be interested to note that its title and a stanza from it was adapated from the poem The Homes of England by Felicia Hemans (1793-1835), first published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in April 1827; its opening lines are The stately Homes of England, How beautiful they stand! Amidst their tall ancestral trees, O'er all the pleasant land! and Coward's parody thereof in his song runs The Stately Homes of England, How beautiful they stand, To prove the upper classes Have still the upper hand The full text of Coward's song may be read at www.songlyrics.com/noel-coward/the-stately-homes-of-england-lyrics/ . The reference to "the Bechstein grand" disappoints, however; surely it would better have been "Steinway" - or better still "Bösendorfer" except that this would have interfered with the scansion? Anyway, to return to your question, perhaps life might be thought to be "mostly froth and bubble" for those whose profession embraces the creation, marketing and distribution of champagne but, since that is not what most people do, I have no idea what you mean by this! |
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