In Plain Sight

The fact that British English hasn’t changed quite that much over the intervening years is indicated by my knowing immediately that you have “loo” in the wrong column.

Our class differences seem to me to be marked at least as sharply by grammar and pronunciation (“accent”) as by vocabulary. In every region, there’s stratification by how we say it as well as by what we say. Novice novelists trying for “backwoods” markers often fall into the trap of pegging characters by word choice, assisted by phonetic spelling, and the choices are generally the same: “likker,” “britches,” “vittles.” One wonders how they think “liquor,” “breeches,” and “victuals” are supposed to be pronounced.
  The overuse of “ladies” and “gentlemen” for “women” and “men,” however, is definitely a tell.

Yacht is also a technical term with regard to registration.  Boats of or over a certain size can be registered with the Federal Government as a Yacht and entitled to wear the U S Yacht Ensign instead of the usual Merchant/Naval Ensign ~ National Flag.  And they have a registered name but do not have State registration or bow numbers.  But I doubt if that’s general to most Americans.

Withe respect to how students address professors, I suggest the regional variation here may override the class one.  While it is apparently common among some East Coast universities and the NY Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the CHE to use the title Dr. only for people with medical degrees, (reverse snobbery??, deliberate put down of nonmedical doctorates??,…), in the Middle West and South, it is usual to use the title Dr. as an address, even in relatively or very selective private colleges and “public ivies”.

In Burma/Myanmar:

U: U Thant
Non-U: George Orwell

On the contrary.  In some circles, any description other than just “boat” is considered a vulgar attempt by the speaker to impress the listener.  Someone wealthy enough to own a 3-master either doesn’t care if you know it or hasn’t been wealthy very long.

Students’ habits, aside, those professors who insist on being called “Dr.” are certainly non-U speakers. Those institutions who encourage this are often schools who are associated with specific, often marginalized, identity groups, such as church-related schools or those who preferentially serve one cultural group or another.  

There’s also an element of willful modesty in using “boat” for “yacht,” the way classical violinists occasionally say “I fiddle for the xyz orchestra,” when “fiddle music” (such as Bluegrass) is the last thing they would ever be interested in.  Such usages are closely bound to social class, but precisely because of that, people carefully modulate how they use their vocabulary.  It’s impossible to just make a simple equation a=U: b=non-U.  

I grew up in Vermont, and “thanks much” was a feature of the local dialect, associated with “real Vermonters” and not with preppy interlopers with summer houses (“flatlanders”).  So I have a hard time hearing it as an elite locution when it is so strongly associated with non-elite speakers in my experience.  I would think that the U usage would be simply “Thanks” or “Thank you,” without embellishment.

Usually we just say “school” (implying secondary school), simply assuming it was One Of Those, either boarding or day; “college” means university.  It is the assumptions underneath to listen for, yes?

Well, elsieboy, I was certain about that, and resumably Mr Yagoda was, because he has corrected his post, although without publishing a note drawing attention to his correction, and without adding a footnote to my comment.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t consider that best journalistic practice, do you?

 Ah yes I must have been looking at the corrected one, which looks perfectly right to me.