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![Kate Fox](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1604746225i/36574._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Tea is still believed, by English people of all classes, to have miraculous properties. A cup of tea can cure, or at least significantly alleviate, almost all minor physical ailments and indispositions, from a headache to a scraped knee. Tea is also an essential remedy for all social and psychological ills, from a bruised ego to the trauma of a divorce or bereavement. This magical drink can be used equally effectively as a sedative or stimulant, to calm and soothe or to revive and invigorate. Whatever your mental or physical state, what you need is ‘a nice cup of tea’.”
― Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour
― Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour
![Kate Fox](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1604746225i/36574._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“the myth is still widely believed, particularly among males, that men spend their conversations ‘solving the world’s problems’, while the womenfolk gossip in the kitchen. In my discussion groups and interviews, most English males initially claimed that they did not gossip, while most of the females readily admitted that they did. On further questioning, however, the difference turned out to be more a matter of semantics than practice: what the women were happy to call ‘gossip’, the men defined as ‘exchanging information’.”
― Watching the English
― Watching the English
![Kate Fox](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1604746225i/36574._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“The understatement rule means that a debilitating and painful chronic illness must be described as ‘a bit of a nuisance’; a truly horrific experience is ‘well, not exactly what I would have chosen’; a sight of breathtaking beauty is ‘quite pretty’; an outstanding performance or achievement is ‘not bad’; an act of abominable cruelty is ‘not very friendly’, and an unforgivably stupid misjudgement is ‘not very clever’; the Antarctic is ‘rather cold’ and the Sahara ‘a bit too hot for my taste’; and any exceptionally delightful object, person or event, which in other cultures would warrant streams of superlatives, is pretty much covered by ‘nice’, or, if we wish to express more ardent approval, ‘very nice’.”
― Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour
― Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour
![Kate Fox](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1604746225i/36574._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“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.”
― Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour
― Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour
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