In the old days…

[Timetochangegonzo]

Did people converse differently with each other. I’m watching a (modern, award winning) film set in 50s / 60s and everyone is incredibly formal with each other. Even with their family. There’s little laughing and joking and a lot of….well, words….

Now I know films aren’t real life but it’s such a common thing to see this amongst middle class families in media, I wondered whether anyone that lived in that time could confirm whether this is reality and life was much more formal? Or it’s all just bullshit.

Bs likely

Just realised you think the 60s is the old days....bloody hell

Some of it will be class dependent maybe but yes

I had an honorary grandma - I know, weird - and she and her sister used to say how nice it was that people now don't have to speak the way they did in the past.

I also have a contact in her 60s who was raised in a military family and they still all speak to each other formally.

Hate to break it to ya, but the 1990s is the old days!! 😆

@Timetochangegonzo I was watching an old film from 1946 I think it was, and the way some of them spoke on there was sooo odd ... The women sounded like someone impersonating the Queen, and the men sounded like the men on Harry Enfield show in the Mr Cholmondley-Warner sketches .. SO yeah, they did seem different/formal/almost posh...

When I googled the actors and actresses, some of them were born in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s!

Both my grandmum's (I was too young to remember my granddad's) used to refer to each other as Mrs X and Mrs Y, christian names were never used. This was in the 70's.
Certainly things were more formal and although it was overemphasised in films and TV programs I think it was very much based on fact.

Did this formality continue in the family home? I find it amazing no-one could ever just sit around in their pj’s slobbing out, eating pizza and chatting.

If you look at the early episodes of Coronation Street (began in 1960) you'll see a huge difference in how people spoke.

Yes, I know soaps aren't real, but they are emblematic, and the conversational style was totally different, as were family habits. People sat round a table to eat, and really conversed - in ways that were far more densely wordy

Well that there is the erosion of standards, manners and etiquette 🤷‍♀️

If you look at the early episodes of Coronation Street (began in 1960) you'll see a huge difference in how people spoke

I guess i always wondered if this was reality though or just how people wanted to be represented.

I've witnessed this too in rural Ireland; older generations sitting by the fire, drinking tea and really talking. As soon as someone suggested putting the kettle on I knew we'd be there all day!

It was formal but in a rather lovely, familiar way too, just that everything was carefully enunciated and thought through if that makes sense, compared to the somewhat jabbering and quick fire style of speech I default towards, with lots of non verbal vocalisations as well.

in the 80s so not olden days! my mum and were referred to by anybody as Mrs x or Mr x, she referred to everyone in the village the same Mrs Smith, Mrs Jenkins, Mr Cherry etc..
As kids we referred to adults with there titles too.

Only close friends of my mums talked to each other using first names, and we had to have permission from those people to able to use their first names.

You didn't sit around in pyjamas during the day if you were respectable. My gran and her friends called each other Mrs, so and so, never their first names.
But they did have a laugh and joke. Simply the idea of politeness was different.

My father would only eat meals at the table, never sitting on the sofa. A cup of tea and a biscuit was fine for the sofa, anything more substantial was eaten at the dining table. Both my parents and in laws set the table with cutlery for every meal and my in laws always used a tablecloth.

oh and it wasn't stuffy or stilted it's just the way we spoke, and yes going round to someone's house was a long affair once the kettle was on, and very relaxed.

I was at senior school in the 80s and no-one spoke like I’m referring to!

Levels of formality have changed for sure. I remember pjs in the day being for if you were ill only. Same for blankets on the sofa. You had to be dressed to a certain level to go out, no popping to the paper shop in your dressing gown. And visitors were served tea and cake or biscuits in proper cups and saucers and china plates, especially at older people's homes. As for speech my boys have autism and are quite wordy. I've been told they sound posh. It's just normal to me. I think people probably have fewer conversations now in general as lifestyles have changed away from formal mealtimes and everyone being in together. Different shifts, people being out at hobbies and such are much more common now. My mum had to have elocution sessions when she was training to be a teacher in the 60s, regional accents were considered unprofessional and to be unlearned in favour of RP. Now my DCs' teachers have a wide range of accents and it's fine. As an interesting aside from this has anyone noticed how people's posture has changed? Look at old films and newsreels at how people used to stand up straight and no forward head!

As 50s children, meals were only ever eaten at a fully set table and then we had to ask permission to leave the table. Conversation and good manners were expected. Washed hands, no books or toys, etc.

No one ever went downstairs in nightclothes, and by this, I mean dressing gowns, as no one went anywhere outside the bedroom in pyjamas or nightdresses.

Shop assistants used to call my mother “Madam” and offer her a chair whilst they brought items she selected.

And I can remember men raising their hats, especially to women. Boys mostly wore caps, which they were expected to raise and remove them indoors.

it was another world.

Actors in the past were taught posture and how to enunciate

Born in 1955, working to lower middle class. Yes, conversation was considered incredibly important. At mealtimes - which were ALWAYS family at the table, with place settings - children would be asked 'open' questions, and were each expected to reply in some depth depending on age & ability. Current affairs were discussed; everybody read the paper and listened to the radio/tv news.

Not listening was a huge social crime, for adults and children alike ... men got away with not listening to women & children, natch, but they did have to give an appearance of listening 😂

No-one in my immediate circle spoke the Queen's English but we all knew people who did, and people having a 'telephone voice' was so widespread that it was a standard joke - see Hyacinth Bucket!

By the 1960s it wasn't normal for English families to Mr & Mrs, Sir & Ma'am each other, but some older people still did. Important to note that couples didn't Mr & Mrs each other in private! We were told that some did, presumably to discourage awkward questions, but in reality they addressed each other that way in company. If somebody else didn't know them all that well or there was a status gap, it saved everyone worrying about whether they should use first or last names.

My (girls') school included elocution & deportment lessons. We weren't made to talk like the Queen, though. I think they were trying to soften the regional accent. It was about clarity & being universally understandable - Received Pronunciation, basically, with permitted local & individual variations.

it was too cold to go round in pyjamas.

Oh for sure. I was watching a documentary on the poet Philip Larkin the other day (on YouTube). He is interviewed by his friend John Betjeman, yet Betjeman addresses him as Mr Larkin!

People were also more polite. And they were definitely more eloquent. When I think back to my grandparent’s generation (I’m in my 50s, so we’re talking about people born between 1910 and 1925), I’m often struck by how beautifully they spoke. Even well-educated people are often dreadful speakers nowadays, and can barely get through a sentence without saying “y’know” or “I mean it’s like” etc. I believe that an educated person in 1900 had a vocabulary of around 100,000 words, but that today it is 60,000.

Still, in other ways people have changed for the better. My grandparents were emotionally repressed, for example, and didn’t believe in hugging or kissing children. They also had no language for trauma or pain. The misery of their childhoods, the cruelties they’d endured, etc, were taboo. We live in a therapy/self-help culture now, and in many ways that’s a good thing.

I regret the passing of some of it. I was born in the 1950s, and I get annoyed when complete strangers think it’s okay to address me by my Christian name, rather than title and surname. It’s rudely overfamiliar- first names are for close friends and family only.
Eating meals at a table, with good manners and intelligent conversation, is a joy, and it’s sad to see modern people just eating off their laps in front of a tv or while scrolling their phone, ignoring their companions.
My children were brought up to eat at the table, and we chatted about their day and discussed plans for the weekend etc. It was important to have that family time, as I was out working and they were at school, so it was when we reconnected with each other.
I also deplore the dumbing down of language. If you read any Victorian novel, you will find a much wider vocabulary than in modern literature, and readers were assumed to understand the meaning of much longer and more obscure words than nowadays.
There was also a much stronger, unspoken moral code. Church attendance and Christian belief were the norm, everyone knew the basic Bible stories and references, and there was more respect for authority. Teachers could walk straight into a classroom and teach, not waste time trying to deal with disruptive, unmotivated pupils who were glued to mobile phones and only interested in a career as an influencer or pop star!
Kids had healthier lives, mainly outdoors, too. No computers, no video games, just fresh air, exercise and imagination.