Are there Americans who read Shakespeare, have silverware made of solid silver, get into the traditional universities, play tennis or row and have a more British way of life?

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Confetticandi@reddit

To add to what others have said, a solid silver set of silverware is a common item for middle class American grandmas to have, along with their fine china set and fine glassware. American grandmas will pull out “the fine silver and the fine china” for family holiday celebrations.

America became very rich in the 1950s onward. A lot of people bought silver sets.

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LeGranMeaulnes@reddit (OP)

You made me wonder if a lot of people do have sets of solid silver cutlery (3-4K $ new) lying around

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ProfessionalAir445@reddit

Is this some kind of special interest of yours?

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LeGranMeaulnes@reddit (OP)

I like collectibles, vintage objects. I’ve got a classic car

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LeGranMeaulnes@reddit (OP)

Silver plated or sterling silver?

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Confetticandi@reddit

Sterling silver. Everyone is selling them these days because it’s another one of those things everyone’s grandma leaves behind for them, but the younger generations have no interest in them.

Article about it.

My grandma also left behind a sterling silver set. My mom has it now.

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anneofgraygardens@reddit

I'd be fascinated to know what actual British people think of this poster's concept of a "British way of life". I've been to the UK and have met loads of British people and I don't think a lot of them are eating with solid silver.

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LeGranMeaulnes@reddit (OP)

Upper-middle class / upper-class people

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ProfessionalAir445@reddit

……LOL. Do you think everyone in the UK drinks tea with a pinkie in the air?

What about the chavs and roadmen? Are they regularly attending polo games and eating cucumber sandwhiches?

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LeGranMeaulnes@reddit (OP)

Nah but the UK is more split by class than the USA… They even have different accents I went to Cambridge, met a few people there who lived differently

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MrLongWalk@reddit

this is not “British”

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yubnubster@reddit

I find it a little odd, maybe I’m not appropriately British enough though, with my peasant stainless steel and complete lack of interest in Shakespeare.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Though there is something bluntly practical about stainless steel eating utensils in a few varieties determined by market demand.

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Brilliant_Towel2727@reddit

You're thinking of 'WASPs' (short for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), the northeastern elite that dominated American culture through the late 20th century. They tended to be Anglophilic in outlook and in many cases had predominantly English ancestry. WASPs admired the upper class English lifestyle (as they understood it) and emulated it in many respects, sending their sons to boarding schools like Andover and St. Paul's that were modeled after the British public schools and then to Ivy League universities that imitated Oxbridge (Yale has a residential college modeled on Oxbridge; Harvard is famously located in Cambridge Massachusetts). They also tended to go for sports that were popular in Britain, including golf, tennis, horseback riding, and rowing.

As to whether these people are still around, yes, although they aren't as prominent as they once were. Changes in the economy after WWII eroded the connection between being old money and having economic power, at the same time as the Ivy League and its feeder boarding schools started trying to make their admissions more inclusive. Many of the WASPs moved out of the northeast and toned down their cultural affectations. A good example of this is the Bush family. George H.W. Bush was very much the classic WASP, raised in Connecticut and educated at Andover and Yale, but he moved to Texas to seek his fortune in the oil industry. His son George W. Bush had the same education, but retained a Texas accent from his childhood and comes across as much less 'preppy' than his father. Over time, class markers have evolved, becoming less self-consciously imitative of the British aristocracy but retaining some of the elements that were borrowed in the 19th and 20th centuries. Lacrosse has joined tennis and rowing in the stable of sports popularly associated with prep schools, and the same prep schools are allegedly kicking out Shakespeare to make room for more diverse literature, but there are still plenty of families who pride themselves on inherited china and shell out for tennis camps in hope of helping their kids get into Brown.

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LeGranMeaulnes@reddit (OP)

excellent answer, thanks

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Meilingcrusader@reddit

Shakespeare is extremely popular in America and is often read in schools. Tennis is probably the second most popular upper class sport after golf. A lot of our top universities in the ivy league have a lot in common with the top British schools. Generally a lot of British culture is decently popular here (a lot of British writers, philosophers, and singers are/were popular here, Americans often take an interest in the British royals, etc). Particularly this kind of stuff has some influence among the wealthy in the northeast and especially New England.

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ageekyninja@reddit

What?! Yall really do that? Haha I didn’t know. Yes, we all read Shakespeare in high school. We have mandatory curriculums on it. I like Shakespeare. Most don’t. The old English language barrier is a big reason, I think. A lot of us who are very into theatre tend to be bigger fans. There are also those of us who are into classic literature stuff in general.

Actual silver silverware? Hell no. We. Are. Broke. More like dollar general forks.

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Bluemonogi@reddit

Are there Americans who are living like a stereotype of a British upper class person? Maybe. It is a big country with millions of people. I don’t know people like that.

Shakespeare was assigned reading at my school. I don’t make a habit of reading Shakespeare as an adult. Some people like that kind of thing more than others. The person I know who likes Shakespeare the most is a retired English teacher who is more of a 1960’s hippie type than a British aristocrat wannabe.

I use stainless steel utensils. I have some silver utensils that I inherited but they are packed away. My family only used them on special occasions.

I’m not sure what you mean by a traditional university. I went to a 4 year private liberal arts college that was founded in 1884. Attending a 4 year college/university is common. If by traditional you mean the oldest or most well known university then a lot of Americans attend different schools.

I played tennis in physical education classes in high school. There are public tennis courts all over the country. It isn’t something only rich people can do. Some people do rowing but I never have and don’t know anyone into it. That might just be that it isn’t popular in the middle of the country.

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pirawalla22@reddit

I read Shakespeare, have solid silver silverware, went to a "traditional university" (I'll allow this without belaboring over what that phrase is supposed to mean) and was on the crew team.

None of this has anything to do with a "more British way of life," which I definitely do not have.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Hahaha I rowed, I have my grandmas silver tea set.

I even rowed in the Henley on Thames Royal Regatta and won a cup. We fucking dunked on the fancy ass Ivy Leaguers and Brit schools. We also ingratiated ourselves at the local pub we were warned to avoid because it was too rough.

Pretty posh for the grandson of a gas/service station owner and grandson of a used car salesman both from Midwest corn country no?

As for Shakespeare it’s required reading in every high school I am familiar with. It’s not exactly silver spoon material.

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rawbface@reddit

Get a load of moneybags, he knows both his grandfathers

/s

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Truly an aristocratic dynasty

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LittleJohnStone@reddit

Get a load of this one, probably chews with their mouth closed, too.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

This one cracks me up because my mom, bless her, is Mrs. Manners to the n^th degree. Setting the table right, using china for nice dinners, proper clothes, etc. but that woman cannot chew without smacking her lips and her chewing gum is an auditory experience.

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LittleJohnStone@reddit

My MIL is so hung up on table settings, yet never says 'please', to the point where I have scold her like a child since my own kids say it as a default.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Oh man my mom’s the opposite she is the please police on my kids. I’m kind of middle of the road on please and thank you but Gaga isn’t going to allow any of that rudeness.

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BranchBarkLeaf@reddit

I re-read below the title. It says, “The British upper/upper-middle class way of life.” I guess it’s just ask how similar our upper class is to theirs. I may have misunderstood the meaning when I responded below.

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pirawalla22@reddit

I'm quite certain that text wasn't there originally and OP added it

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BranchBarkLeaf@reddit

Ok, then I’m not sure what they really mean.

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

Look at Mr. Posh over here.

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pirawalla22@reddit

I know, can you imagine?

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Hoosier_Jedi@reddit

“Do rich WASPs exist?” simplified that for you.

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Icy-Student8443@reddit

r u talking about dudes that wear top hats those eye thingys drink tea and still read news papers or people who just like shakespeare

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Suppafly@reddit

There are rich people in America, but I wouldn't say that their way of life is 'more British'.

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nemo_sum@reddit

Well, me, but: My great-grandparents were immigrants from Britain. They're the ones I inherited the family silver and the Wedgewood china and the tea habit from. Tennis and Shakespeare and admission to the university I picked up on my own.

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cdb03b@reddit

Shakespeare is read by all Americans in school. A very large percentage of Americans go to Universities. A significant number of Americans have cutlery make of real silver if they can afford to buy it or have relatives who gift it to them either for weddings or as inheritance. A not insignificant number of people play tennis for fun, and most schools ( at least in Texas) have a tennis team that competes if the school is large enough to hire a coach for it. Row as a sport is rare. I have no clue what you mean by "more British way of life".

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RingGiver@reddit

Nearly every American who attends high school (and probably middle school) reads Shakespeare. That being said, I don't think I've looked at Shakespeare since then. Too recent for the kind of literature that I read for my degree. I know plenty of average people who have all of the other things that you described.

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BookLuvr7@reddit

I love Shakespeare, my mom had her mother's real silver set be we didn't use it much, and I could've done the rest I'd I'd had buckets of money.

As it is, I much prefer European entertainment and enjoy British shows and stories. Thankfully, so does my husband. We also study foreign languages together every night.

Sadly, most of the things you mentioned aren't affordable for most people. Thankfully, Shakespeare is free and readily available. I highly recommend the complete works with all the footnotes so you can understand the jokes.

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Clatuu1337@reddit

I mean we read Shakespeare in school. Some people get into "Traditional" universities. I'm sure some weirdo's use actual silver. But this isn't the 18th century. It is more likely there is a larger subset of British that live a more American life than vice versa.

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BranchBarkLeaf@reddit

Why are you a weirdo if you use actual silver? Maybe you mean on a daily basis, which would be unusual. Lots of us take out the fine stuff for holidays and parties.

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HuckleberrySpy@reddit

It's just a pain to maintain and no more functional than stainless steel. The only reason to use real silver is to show off that you have real silver. So it's kind of silly. Not that there's anything wrong with being silly. Make yourself happy.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Weirdo! [he says while eyeing the silver tea service he inherited from grandma]

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BranchBarkLeaf@reddit

Use it! Polish it and have a tea party. I don’t like ironing the tablecloth, but that’s the most labor. I love the rest of it.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

I do very occasionally. We did have an Alice in Wonderland themed birthday for my daughter one year. Silver tea service and actually pretty nice China I got from Craigslist for cheap. Someone was definitely not aware of what they could have gotten for it.

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BranchBarkLeaf@reddit

Aw, that must’ve been a sweet party 🌷 Actually, I inherited some stuff, and I bought other things. I bought some of it from EBay. As you say, it was cheap. It makes me realize that they just wanted to get rid of it, which is a sign that some people just aren’t interested in formality anymore, which is ok, too.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Yeah, my mom geeks out about stuff like that. I don’t really have much interest in it but it’s less expensive than a lot of hobbies she could have.

It was a pretty sweet party. With an aging population a lot of stuff like china and silverware is just getting dumped out of estate sales on the cheap unless it is something really rare or collectible.

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kjb76@reddit

I know plenty of people who do those things and are not upper class. Or British.

I am also not upper class or British and have read a ton of Shakespeare.

And what do you mean by “traditional” universities?? This question is so dumb.

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Odd-Local9893@reddit

Those are very specific but it sounds like you’re referencing stereotypical “old money” families from New England or possibly the mid-Atlantic states.

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BranchBarkLeaf@reddit

It also fits lots of middle class families.

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Odd-Local9893@reddit

Not in the sense that OP means. I think they mean families like the Roosevelts, Kennedys, Rothschilds, Vanderbilts, etc. Families that “summer” in places like Martha’s Vineyard and send the daughters to Swiss finishing schools and the sons to private posh academies and then on to Ivory League schools.

I’d answer but I honestly have no idea if “High Society” is a thing anymore like it was last century.

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BranchBarkLeaf@reddit

Actually, I re-read the question. It says, “The British upper/upper-middle class way of life.”

Do middle class people play tennis, etc.? Yeah. I think I misunderstood the question at first. It might mean are there different aspects of American middle class or upper middle class characteristics, or are they very similar.

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shelwood46@reddit

British "middle class" means rich people who aren't in the aristocracy, what Americans would call upper middle class or flat out rich. In this case, they are talking about old money rich, and those people certainly exist but are not nearly as insular as they were 100+ years ago.

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LeGranMeaulnes@reddit (OP)

Yes exactly

Asking if they still exist

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WingedLady@reddit

Old money families exist but you're not going to find clear delineation between them and someone in the middle class using these arbitrary markers.

Most of us read Shakespeare in English class. Starting in middle school (I distinctly remember reading Macbeth in 6th grade when I was 11).

A lot of middle class people a few decades ago hoarded fancy cutlery and now no one wants because it's such a hassle to maintain it so it's basically worthless. I know people unable to sell the family's silver utensils for more than the value of the silver.

Many of our universities are respected around the world and are publicly funded so someone from an older family won't necessarily get any better or prestigious of an education than anyone else.

And most of our universities take pride in their sports teams (like the old Greek school of thought that a healthy body feeds a healthy mind). So someone being on a tennis or rowing team just means they went to college.

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dtb1987@reddit

Yes old money families do exist in the US

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DrBlankslate@reddit

Apart from mandatory Shakespeare in high school? No. We kind of made the point that we are NOT British in this little war we had around 1776. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

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flootytootybri@reddit

Most Americans have read Shakespeare. I’ve taken a whole Shakespeare class, I’m an English major… but I don’t have a “more British way of life”

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Dude you are from New England, you might as well put some beans on toast and take up dressage as a hobby

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flootytootybri@reddit

Call me Queen Elizabeth III too while we’re at it

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Cleveland_Grackle@reddit

read Shakespeare, have silverware made of solid silver, get into the traditional universities, play tennis or row and have a more British way of life

This is not a typical British way of life.

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BranchBarkLeaf@reddit

No, but it’s upper class, right?

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LeGranMeaulnes@reddit (OP)

Not a middle class or working class way of life, definitely

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Mouse-Direct@reddit

I read Shakespeare in high school for FUN, later majored in English Lit and took two university courses in the Bard. I inherited my mother’s silver but I’ve only used it twice because it’s a pain to clean. I went to a state college, but my son is applying to Princeton and Columbia (if that’s what you meant by traditional).

I don’t consider any of that British, though. I do consider my love of fish and chips, kebab, and the BBC, Jonathan Bailey and Kit Conner pretty British, though.

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BranchBarkLeaf@reddit

Wrap the silver in cotton cloth, and put it in a ziplock bag. I’ve been doing that for so many years. It never tarnishes.

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Mouse-Direct@reddit

Thank you!!

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DOMSdeluise@reddit

Shakespeare is widely read in American schools starting in like middle school.

If you're asking if we have old money rich people then the answer is yes.

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sweetbaker@reddit

The number of times we read Romeo and Juliet 😑😅

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Gallahadion@reddit

Funny thing is that of all the Shakespeare I read in school, I never read Romeo and Juliet. I read Macbeth twice, though.

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hermitthefraught@reddit

I also saw the stage play and the ballet! And I just bought tickets to see two new takes on it on Broadway when I'm in NY in a couple months.

My high school literature teacher thought reading Shakespeare is overrated, though. We did read a couple plays, but he said, "Plays are meant to be seen and heard, not read."

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sweetbaker@reddit

My high school had us read them out loud in class. One English teacher brought in props/horrible (but fun!) costumes to put over our clothes to act out parts.

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sinnayre@reddit

I swear I read that every year in junior high and high school.

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Remote_Leadership_53@reddit

I rowed a single in high school but I grew up in a household with generally negative views on traditionally British anything

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Signal-Spend-6548@reddit

LMAO

You do not understand how American these things are. Shakespeare is our history too. Anything AFTER 1776 you can claim as being solely British lol.

Rowing? Check out the Olympic medals. Tennis? Same.

Harvard? Stanford?

And silverware is just a rich person thing lol.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

My very much not rich grandparents both had silverware sets. It’s not so crazy for the middle class.

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Signal-Spend-6548@reddit

I guess I'm biased. If your family never had to sell their silverware that's certainly wealthier than my family!

I think I'm pretty rich because of how far I've come... But I'm realistically upper middle class. No silverware.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Yeah and it’s definitely gone out of style. I don’t believe I know any people my age that bought their own and didn’t get it from family.

My wife was from a much more working class family and when my mom gave use grandma’s tea set she was just absolutely mystified as to why anyone would want that.

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03zx3@reddit

You'll be hard pressed to find an American that hasn't read at least Romeo and Juliet.

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SilvanSorceress@reddit

Yes, my grandparents are like this on both sides of my family, and impressed it quite heavily on my parents as well my brother and I. It has a lot to do with the time in which they raised, as my great-grandparents' generation valued assimilation into American society, high culture and the arts, education, and other components of class that extend beyond the superficial. There's certainly a dialect to it, although it's far more subtle than the differences that you may observe in the UK. It really requires that Henry Higgins ear for diction.

My great-grandparents spent most of their disposable income to put my grandmother in a private school, provided her with tennis lessons and expected her to be involved in theatre. My grandfather, similarly, was sent to boarding school.

My parents attended regular schools, but the assimilated Jewish community we are from has a lot of holdovers from an older kind of British culture that are ironically absent from the rest of American culture. Racquet sports, Elizabethan literature, and silverware only scratch the surface.

My mother says that we are 'cosmopolitan people', unlike the rest of the US.

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Vict0r117@reddit

Are you asking if white Anglo-saxon Protestants exist in the US? Cuz WASPs sorta run our country.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Oh yeah, wasps like Trump, Biden, and Obama.

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lsp2005@reddit

I read Shakespeare, my children read Shakespeare. We kayak and sail. My parents owned a boat. My in laws were members of a sailing club (but not a fancy kind). I attended a top 20 University. My husband attended an Ivy League University. We have sterling flatware and platters. I do not consider myself posh. But I can use the landed gentry accent of my region as found in the satirical book the preppy handbook. I knew people who spoke with a lockjaw unironically. They were my grandparents age, and this was back in the 1980s.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

The sailing thing cracks me up. I had a friend from one of the poorer Chicago burbs. He bought some busted down foreclosure sail boat and joined a kind of punk sailing club on Lake Michigan. He referred to his boat as his yacht and said he was going to the yacht club when he meant going out sailing in some ramshackle beast and having some beers on the water.

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Recent-Irish@reddit

What the hell is a traditional university?

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HuckleberrySpy@reddit

One with creepy secret societies made up of only *the right sort of people*, who cover up each others' crimes and filthy shenanigans their whole lives, I assume.

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TheBlazingFire123@reddit

Even those secret societies aren’t like that anymore. Skull and bones is now pretty much a group of left wing activists

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AnalogNightsFM@reddit

That sounds a lot like The Brotherhood of Death.

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harlemjd@reddit

Yale would absolutely qualify as a “traditional university.”

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Dont_Wanna_Not_Gonna@reddit

Hazing, binge drinking, and amateur sports. :)

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evil_burrito@reddit

We don't have a true aristocracy in the way the British do. We don't have titles nor is there a tradition of inheriting huge estates and money with the expectation that working is not expected of them.

We sorta have a nuveaux-riches class, you could say, which includes the scions of tycoons. These people would do the things you list there but would be expected to take at least a sinecure in the company business.

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JimBones31@reddit

British way of life?

Sorry, no. I don't go to the pub every night.

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lokland@reddit

I’m not sure what you’re trying to ask us here. But if the question is “Are there ‘posh’ Americans who have maintained the British style of aristocratic education and mannerisms?” The answer is no. American and British upper class are very, very different beasts. American upper class culture took a lot of cues from the British no doubt, but they’ve been distinct for centuries. The hereditary connection to House of Lords members has no parallel in the United States, the sport of Tennis isn’t as closely connected with rich people as it is in the UK, and the university connection isn’t as firm either. Rich kids in the US have different stereotypes largely dependent on region and race. But the Northeast/Midwest stereotype of preppy white kids who go sailing and go to either an Ivy League or well known school is probably the closest link the the American WASPs and British Upper-Class have in common.

No wealthy American would ever associate their lifestyle as being derived from or an imitation of British upper class life though, they evolved separately an entire ocean apart, and the American class system is nowhere as rigid as the British one.

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dtb1987@reddit

We all read Shakespeare at some point in our lives, it is part of our education. Some people like it and choose to read it during their free time. There are actually so many heirloom silver sets floating around that most people probably have 2 or more sets. Tennis is a sport played all around the globe. Lots of people go to university and we have many waterways and there are rowing teams. This is a weird question

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LeGranMeaulnes@reddit (OP)

Asking about a lifestyle

Asking whether people (like Christopher Reeve or Dr. Benjamin Spock) transmitted this lifestyle to the younger generations

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dtb1987@reddit

People like this exist here. You shouldn't have any trouble finding younger people who are like this and come from families who live this lifestyle and pass it to their kids

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DankBlunderwood@reddit

You're not describing a "British way of life", you're describing a privileged way of life that isn't specifically British at all, or at least hasn't been specifically British for the last several centuries. Yes, Ivy League universities have a fairly large cohort of "legacy" students who grew up rowing, or doing equestrian and dressage, and went to prep schools with eye watering tuition where they learned Shakespeare and Milton from eminent faculty. That's what you do when you're born into great wealth.

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DerekL1963@reddit

You choice of demographic markers is... very odd and somewhat offbase. But yes, among money (especially old money) and among the upper middle classes, there was a distinct tendency to emulate (as much as they could) an upper/upper middle class British lifestyle. It seems to have fallen out of fashion, maybe sometime in the mid 20th century.

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g1rthqu4k3@reddit

We have 88 Olympic rowing medals, the UK has 78. Yes, there are Americans who know their way around an oar.

If your question is "are these things signifiers of the upper class?" the answer is yes, to a certain extent. I would however direct you to either the book or the movie "The Boys in the Boat" to see a good example of how that is not always the case while also exploring the connection between tradition elite university sports and class.

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Dont_Wanna_Not_Gonna@reddit

I read Shakespeare, have a set of real silverware, went to (several) universities (I don’t know what you mean by “traditional” but the first university I went to is almost as old as the U.S.), and I used to row. As an immigrant (not from Britain or a former colony) I can guarantee that none of those had anything to do with a British way of life for me.

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HuckleberrySpy@reddit

That describes a lot of people I know aside from the "British" part.

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4x4Lyfe@reddit

Wtf does Tennis have to do with being British

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CanuckBee@reddit

Yes to the first three, no tennis or rowing but I do sail. I drink tea. I speak English. I am not, however, British. I live a North American lifestyle.

I do not subscribe to a class system. I would never defer to, or fawn over, someone because of what they have inherited, including title. I am not a monarchist. I believe in a meritocracy and in democracy. I am not religious, nor do I want our head of state to be associated with any church. I also rarely drink alcohol.

I do love many things about the UK, and spend a lot of time there.

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thatsad_guy@reddit

Almost everyone has read Shakespeare to some extent. My mom has silverware mad of solid silver. I don't know what you mean by traditional university. A lot of the kids I went to high school with played tennis. What does any of that have to do with a British way of life?

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GeorgePosada@reddit

We have plenty of old money, high-society type people, particularly in the Northeast, but I wouldn’t describe their way of life as inherently British in nature apart from the fact that they’re mostly Protestants and love to play golf

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AZymph@reddit

Shakespeare is literally taught in school here. Silverware is often stainless steel, but folks do sometimes still use inherited real silver (and it's still sometimes sold new)

Tennis is popular, there's many courts near me despite a 4 season weather pattern.

"Traditional universities" I'm not totally sure what you're referring to, but I'll submit Harvard, Yale, etc as likely candidates and yes, folks do attend those prestigious schools.

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I'd rather be our upper/upper-middle than the British equivalent.

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