Expressing emtion

[bazfaz]

My daughter has given me Watching the English by Kate Fox. This is how the English (not British) behave in social situations. She has this to say:

"English males are allowed to express emotion.. Well, they are allowed to express some emotions. Three to be precise: surprise, provided it is conveyed by expletives; anger, genmerall communicated in the same manner; and elation/triumph, which again ofte involves shouting and swearing. It can thus sometimes be rather hard to tell which of the permitted emotions an Englishman is attempting to express."

The book is delightful and I am tempted to keep quoting from it. I'll resist.

[bixaorellana]

Yeah, when you read something that really touches on a place or people you know intimately, there is a strong urge to quote the entire work to others.

That's how I felt reading Florence King's "Southern Ladies & Gentlemen" when it came out in the 70s. It was belly-laugh funny because it was oh so accurate.

from Google Book Search:
Looking for guidance in understanding the ways and means of Southern culture? Look no further. ... The Failed Southern Lady's classic primer on Dixie manners captures such storied types as the Southern Woman (frigid, passionate, sweet, bitchy, and scatterbrained--all at the same time), the Self-Rejuvenating Virgin, and the Good Ole Boy in all his coats and stripes.
No one has ever made more sharp, scathing, affectionate, real sense out of the land of the endless Civil War than Florence King in these razor-edged pages.
Southern Ladies and Gentlemen
By Florence King
Edition: reprint, revised
Published by St. Martin's Press, 1993
ISBN 0312099150, 9780312099152
256 pages

[onlymark]

Well feck me! Is that right!

[bazfaz]

I am aiming to be a self-rejuvenating virgin - what am I doing wrong?