Abstract
‘Between the years 1940 and about 1947’, wrote Peter Laslett some twenty years ago,2 ‘I believe there was a critical event in English social development.’ This, he believed, was nothing less than a change in the shape of society, a sudden crystallisation of a process which had been gradually developing for generations and which he defined in this way. ‘The social height, so to speak, was markedly reduced. From being a pyramid, lofty and slender, society began to look something more like a pear, a pear tending to become an apple. Because it had an altered shape, people began to think about English society differently. Englishmen, perhaps even more Englishwomen, ceased to look upwards as much as they had always done — in short, outward looking began to replace upward looking.’
Throughout this book ‘revolution’ is used in general sense of ‘fundamental and far-reaching change’. Political revolution, involving the overthrow of an existing system of government, is not necessarily implied.
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Notes and References
Throughout this book ‘revolution’ is used in general sense of ‘fundamental and far-reaching change’. Political revolution, involving the overthrow of an existing system of government, is not necessarily implied.
Peter Laslett, in Listener, 11 January 1962, p. 53. This was the third of three talks, all reprinted in the Listener, given under the general title of ‘The Social Revolution of Our Time’.
This was even more true of the United States, where four million boys and girls became 18 in 1965, compared with two million in 1956. Even so, as was pointed out by an American observer in Erik H. Erikson (ed.), Youth: Change and Challenge (New York: Basic Books, 1961) p. 133: ‘At the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, half the nation was under eighteen. We do not touch this proportion today.’
James S. Coleman, The Adolescent Society (New York: The Free Press, 1961) p. 3.
Peter Wilmott, Adolescent Boys of East London (London: Routledge, 1966) p. 36.
Expressions such as ‘his or her’, ‘he or she’ will not always be used in this book when both sexes are implied. For ease of reading the simpler ‘his’ or ‘he’ will be used.
Graham Turner, ‘Ladies will be Ladies’, Sunday Telegraphy, 12 July 1981. Turner makes a very similar point in his previous article about Eton, 5 July 1981. The majority of Eton boys, he says, prefer to conceal the fact when they are with strangers. They ‘reach for their camouflage’. But, he points out, ‘accents can give the game away’. The boys reckon that only 10 per cent now have real Etonian accents and almost everyone seems both delighted and relieved. ‘It’s only grandmothers who have really awful Etonian voices’, said Tony Ray, the Senior Housemaster, while Tom, who took his A levels this half (i.e. term) admits candidly that ‘you keep your accent down because of other people’.
Angela Rippon, well known as a BBC television newsreader during the 1970s.
Alan S. C. Ross, in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, LX, 21 (1954).
Alan S. C. Ross, with Robin Brackenbury, ‘U and Non-U Today’, New Society, 22 August 1968.
His own analysis of his life is to be found in his autobiography, Ray Gosling, Sum Total (London: Faber, 1962).
Ibid., p. 53.
Brian Morris, An Introduction to Mary Quant’s London (London Museum, 1973) p. 7.
Dennis Chapman, ‘The Autonomous Generation’, Listener, 17 January 1963.
Alan Little, ‘The Young Affluents’, Listener, 9 May 1963.
Bernard Davies, ‘Non-Swinging Youth’, New Society, 3 July 1969.
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© 1983 Kenneth Hudson
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Hudson, K. (1983). What Revolution?. In: The Language of the Teenage Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05597-5_1
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