UK Cultural Help - British/English/Canadian?

[erikpolcrack]

I have read a phrase in several novels that is usually used to describe a gentleman of the upper crust. The context is usually someone in describing him uses the phrase "English(or British) scale." From the general context, it seems to me they are describing the gentleman's dress or appearance. The dictionary and search engines have not helped.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Well to do Brits of high societal position.

The opposite of what we were.

 

[Rustyt1953]

No snarkasm or offense intended but I used 3 different search engines and typed in "upper crust" and had to use a bucket to catch all the returns.

 

[Onomea]

Here ya go, per Gemini ChatBot:



"Upper crust" is what you're looking down at when you flip your grilled cheese sammich over to toast up the other side (now called, technically, "the Nether Region.")

 

[erikpolcrack]

Here ya go, per Gemini ChatBot:



"Upper crust" is what your looking down at when you flip your grilled cheese sammich over to toast up the other side (now called, technically, "the Nether Region.")

Thanks, Onomea! That historical definition is exactly what I was looking for. It fits perfectly in each of the contexts in which I have observed it. My searches only came up with that academic grading definition.

 

[erikpolcrack]

No snarkasm or offense intended but I used 3 different search engines and typed in "upper crust" and had to use a bucket to catch all the returns.

"English scale" was the phrase I was asking for help with, not "upper crust". Sorry if my request was not clear enough.

 

[oldbrownhat]

"Upper crust" is what you're looking down at when you flip your grilled cheese sammich over to toast up the other side (now called, technically, "the Nether Region.")

If your grilled cheese sammich hits yer nether region (or someone else's ), yer flippin' too hard!

(Hmmm... It's just gone 7 am and making a GCS - my fav. - for breakfast is sounding like a good idea )

 

[Onomea]

This, For He is an Englishman, from Gilbert & Sullivan, seems appropriate here: https://youtu.be/z2r9t6l_eE8?si=WFBsE9ZLTsx48aJj

 

[Rustyt1953]

"English scale" was the phrase I was asking for help with, not "upper crust". Sorry if my request was not clear enough.

Sorry for my wayward eyes.

Me mum called male fancy dressers "dandies" and "fops".

As to English or gentlemen's formal scales:


The Formality Scale: How Clothes Rank From Formal To Informal

 

[03hemi]

Wasn't it the English nobles that believed the more your teeth were rotten the higher your aristocracy because they were the only ones that could afford sugar?

 

[oldbrownhat]

As a Canadian of English & Scots extraction (it was painless- they used anaesthetic) I knew "upper crust", but not "English scale", so thanks for the edjamacation Dandies, fops, yes. (Some time ago Rusty posted a pic of a bloke in an outrageous outfit which might have warranted "dandy". Almost a Pearly King but really just in bad taste as I recall.)

Now how about "U and non-U" (made famous, or perhaps infamous, by Nancy Mitford in the '50s), and hoi polloi, etc.

Wasn't it the English nobles that believed the more your teeth were rotten the higher your aristocracy because they were the only ones that could afford sugar?

I believe so. But then one of them told God (who was English, of course) to invent toothpaste

 

[oldbrownhat]

Since we're well down the rabbit hole anyway, here's Flanders & Swann's "Song of Patriotic Prejudice."

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh-wEXvdW8[/ame]

 

[venomballistics]

Well to do Brits of high societal position.

The opposite of what we were.

Between this and the gemini results, It would seem to point to social cast and perhaps education

 

[Dave_n]

Since we're well down the rabbit hole anyway, here's Flanders & Swann's "Song of Patriotic Prejudice."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh-wEXvdW8

Took me back quite a few years to the time when UK TV was erudite. Dave_n