Quotes from Kate Fox

Women are more skilled than men at making gossip entertaining.

The most truly eccentric dresser in this country is the Queen, who pays no attention whatsoever to fashion

So we hold endless meetings, everyone is consulted, we discuss everything, and eventually we reach a consensus. Sometimes we even make a decision. Then we go and have a good moan about it all.

That is why a house is not something that you passively 'have', it is something that you 'do', something that you 'work on'

My father was already training me to be an ethnographer, a 'participant observer,' but I was by nature much more of an observer than a participant. And an arrogant little observer at that.

Nor am I saying that English conversation codes do not allow men to express emotion. English males are allowed to express emotion. Well they are allowed to express some emotions. Three, to be precise: surprise, providing it is conveyed by expletives; anger, generally communicated in the same manner; and elation/triumph, which again involves shouting and swearing. It can thus sometimes be rather hard to tell exactly which of these three permitted emotions an Englishman is attempting to express.

Class in England is no more determined by wealth than it is by occupation.

A truly English protest march would see us all chanting: 'What do we want? GRADUAL CHANGE! When do we want it? IN DUE COURSE!

Social scientists are not universally liked or appreciated, but we are still marginally more acceptable than alcoholics and escaped lunatics.

Native speakers can rarely explain the grammatical rules of their own language. In the same way, those who are most 'fluent' in the rituals, customs and traditions of a particular culture generally lack the detachment necessary to explain the 'grammar' of these practices in an intelligible manner. This is why we have anthropologists.

Many of those who pontificate about "acculturation" are inclined to underestimate this element of choice. Such processes are often described in terms suggesting that the "dominant" culture is simply imposed on unwitting, passive minorities, rather than focusing on the extent to which individuals quite consciously, deliberately, cleverly and even mockingly pick and choose amongst the behaviours and customs of their host culture

Humour is our 'default mode', if you like: we do not have to switch it on deliberately, and we cannot switch it off.

fine love poetry tends to be written when the object of one's affection is at a safe distance; also, it often reflects a love of words more than a love of women...

when the English say 'Oh really? How interesting!' they might well mean 'I don't believe a word of it, you lying toad'. Or they might not. They might just mean 'I'm bored and not really listening but trying to be polite'. Or they might be genuinely surprised and truly interested. You'll never know.

Moderation is all very well, but only in moderation.

Even the English, who understand it, are not exactly riotously amused by the understatement. At best, a well-timed, well-turned understatement only raises a slight smirk.

retreat into the privacy and sanctuary of our castle-like homes, shut the door, pull up the imaginary drawbridge and avoid the issue. Home may indeed be our substitute for a Fatherland, but at another level, I would suggest that *home is what the English have instead of social skills*.

When the priest says 'Lord, have mercy upon us', you do not respond 'Well, actually, why should he?' You intone dutifully, 'Christ, have mercy upon us.' In the same way, it would be very rude to respond to 'Ooh, isn't it cold?' with 'No, actually, it's quite mild.

The reasons for our prolific understating are not hard to discover: our strict prohibitions on earnestness, gushing, emoting and boasting require almost constant use of understatement.

I mentioned earlier that someone once said that the English have satire instead of revolutions (or something to that effect): we complain bitterly, and often wittily, but we do not actually do anything about it.

Every social situation is fraught with ambiguity, knee-deep in complication, hidden meanings, veiled power-struggles, passive-aggression and paranoid confusion.

People who insist on calculating in detail exactly who had what when it comes to dividing up the bill are despised, not just because they are miserly, but because such discussions involve a prolonged breach of the money-talk taboo.

A truly English protest march would see us all chanting: 'What do we want? GRADUAL CHANGE! When do we want it? IN DUE COURSE!

Men gossip for just as long and about the same subjects as women, but tend to talk more about themselves.