The Rules of Coded Pub-talk

If you spend hundreds of hours sitting eavesdropping in pubs, you will notice that many pub conversations could be described as �choreographed’, in the sense that they follow a prescribed pattern, and are conducted in accordance with strict rules – although participants are not conscious of this, and obey the rules instinctively. While the rules of this choreographed pub-talk may not be immediately obvious to outsiders, the conversations can be followed and understood. One type of regular-speak, however, is utterly incomprehensible to outsiders, and can be understood only by the regular customers of a particular pub. This is because the regulars are effectively speaking in code, using a private language. Here is my favourite typical example of coded pub-talk, from the etiquette research:

The scene is a busy Sunday lunchtime in a local pub. A few REGULARS are standing at the bar, where the PUBLICAN is serving. A male REGULAR enters, and by the time he reaches the bar, the PUBLICAN has already started pouring his usual pint. The PUBLICAN places the pint on the counter in front of the REGULAR, who fishes in his pocket for money.

REGULAR 1: �Where’s meat and two veg, then?’

PUBLICAN: �Dunno, mate – should be here by now.’

REGULAR 2: �Must be doing a Harry!’

(– All laugh –)

REGULAR 1: �Put one in the wood for him, then – and yourself?’

PUBLICAN: �I’ll have one for Ron, thanks.’

To decode this conversation, you would need to know that the initial question about �meat and two veg’ was not a request for a meal, but an enquiry as to the whereabouts of another regular, nicknamed �Meat-and-two-veg’ because of his rather stolid, conservative nature (meat with two vegetables being the most traditional, unadventurous English meal). Such witty nicknames are common: in another pub, there is a regular known as TLA, which stands for Three Letter Acronym, because of his penchant for business-school jargon.

One would also have to know that �doing a Harry’, in this pub, is code for �getting lost’, Harry being another regular, a somewhat absent-minded man, who once, three years ago, managed to get lost on his way to the pub, and is still teased about the incident. �Put one in the wood for him’ is a local version of a more common pub-talk expression, meaning �reserve a pint of beer to give him when he arrives, which I will pay for now’ (The more usual phrase is �Put one in for...’ or �Leave one in for...’ – �Put one in the wood for...’ is a regional variation, found mainly in parts of Kent.) The phrase �and yourself?’ is shorthand for �and one for yourself?’, the approved formula for offering a drink. The �Ron’ referred to by the publican, however, is not a person, but a contraction of �later on’.

So: Regular 1 is buying a drink now, to be served to the traditionalist Meat-and-two-veg when he arrives (assuming the latter has not repeated Harry’s mistake and got lost) and offering the publican a drink, which he accepts, but will not consume until later on, when he is less busy. Simple, really – if you happen to be a member of this particular pub-tribe, and familiar with all its legends, nicknames, quirks, codes, abbreviations and in-jokes.

In our national scientific pub-crawls, we found that every pub has its own private code of in-jokes, nicknames, phrases and gestures. Like the �private languages’ of other social units such as families, couples, school-friends and work-mates, this coded pub-talk emphasizes and reinforces the social bonds between pub regulars. It also emphasizes and reinforces the sense of equality among them. In the pub, your position in the �mainstream’ social hierarchy is irrelevant: acceptance and popularity in this liminal world are based on quite different criteria, to do with personal qualities, quirks and habits. �Meat-and-two-veg’ could be a bank manager or an unemployed bricklayer. His affectionately teasing nickname is a reference to his middle-of-the-road tastes, his rather conservative outlook on life. In the pub, he is liked, and mocked, for these idiosyncratic foibles; his social class and occupational status are immaterial. �Harry’ might be an absent-minded professor, or an absent-minded plumber. If he were a professor, he might be nicknamed �Doc’, and I heard of a plumber whose unfortunate pub-nickname was �Leaky’, but Harry’s absent-mindedness, not his professional rank, is the quality for which he is known, liked and teased at the Rose and Crown.

So, coded pub-talk facilitates social bonding and reinforces egalitarian values. I mentioned earlier, however, that the primary function of all drinking-places, in all cultures, is the facilitation of social bonding, and that all drinking-places tend to be socially integrative, egalitarian environments – so what, if anything, is peculiarly English about the bonding and egalitarianism we find embedded in coded pub-talk?

There are aspects of this pub-talk that do seem to be identifiably English, such as the celebration of eccentricity, the constant undercurrent of humour, the wit and linguistic inventiveness. But the �universal’ features of facilitation of bonding and egalitarianism are distinctive here only in the degree to which they deviate from the mainstream culture – which is characterized by greater reserve and social inhibition, and more pervasive and acute class-consciousness, than many other societies. It is not that sociability and equality are peculiar to English drinking-places, but that the contrast with our conventional norms is more striking, and that, perhaps, we have a greater need for the drinking-place as a facilitator of sociable egalitarianism – as a liminal world in which the normal rules are suspended.

Дата добавления: 2015-09-06