ABSTRACT

Though small in size, England manifestly has a long and rich history, and its language reflects that. Naturally, working-class people had a wide range of sayings about being poor. They also had many sayings about 'neighbourliness'. Middle-class people have more about 'friendship', though neighbourliness ranks high with them also. Working-class people seemed and seem to have more about superstition, fate, luck, chance. The great interest among working-class people in the workings of chance probably has much to do with the lack of perspective in their lives, with the restraining fact that life does not usually provide a ladder of possibilities, of promptings to ambition, for themselves or their children; that it is, rather, a flat movement along the years, not in any way to be called a 'progression'. Some working-class people have more vulgar expressions than, in general, do middle-class people.