U and non-U English - wikipedia U and non-U English This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( July 2018 ) U Non-U Bike or Bicycle Cycle Dinner jacket Dress suit Knave Jack ( cards ) Vegetables Greens Ice Ice cream Scent Perfume They 've a very nice house They have ( got ) a lovely home Ill ( in bed ) Sick ( in bed ) Looking - glass Mirror Chimneypiece Mantelpiece Graveyard Cemetery Spectacles Glasses False teeth Dentures Die Pass on Mad Mental Jam Preserve Napkin Serviette Sofa Settee or couch Lavatory or loo Toilet Rich Wealthy Good health Cheers Lunch Dinner ( for midday meal ) Pudding Sweet Drawing - room Lounge Writing - paper Note - paper What ? Pardon ? How d'you do ? Pleased to meet you Wireless Radio ( School ) master, mistress Teacher U and non-U English usage, with `` U '' standing for `` upper class '', and `` non-U '' representing the aspiring middle classes, was part of the terminology of popular discourse of social dialects ( sociolects ) in Britain in the 1950s. The debate did not concern itself with the speech of the working classes, who in many instances used the same words as the upper classes. For this reason, the different vocabularies can often appear quite counter-intuitive : the middle classes prefer `` fancy '' or fashionable words, even neologisms and often euphemisms, in attempts to make themselves sound more refined ( `` posher than posh '' ), while the upper classes in many cases stick to the same plain and traditional words that the working classes also use, as, confident in the security of their social position, they have no need to seek to display refinement. Contents 1 History 2 See also 3 References 4 Further reading 5 External links History The debate was set in motion in 1954 by the British linguist Alan S.C. Ross, professor of linguistics in the University of Birmingham. He coined the terms `` U '' and `` non-U '' in an article, on the differences that social class makes in English language usage, published in a Finnish professional linguistics journal. Though his article included differences in pronunciation and writing styles, it was his remark about differences of vocabulary that received the most attention. The English author Nancy Mitford was alerted and immediately took up the usage in an essay, `` The English Aristocracy '', which Stephen Spender published in his magazine Encounter in 1954. Mitford provided a glossary of terms used by the upper classes ( some appear in the table at right ), unleashing an anxious national debate about English class - consciousness and snobbery, which involved a good deal of soul - searching that itself provided fuel for the fires. The essay was reprinted, with contributions by Evelyn Waugh, John Betjeman, and others, as well as a `` condensed and simplified version '' of Ross ' original article, as Noblesse Oblige : an Enquiry into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy in 1956. Betjeman 's poem How to Get on in Society concluded the collection. The issue of U and non-U could have been taken lightheartedly, but at the time many took it very seriously. This was a reflection of the anxieties of the middle class in Britain of the 1950s, recently emerged from post-war austerities. In particular the media used it as a launch pad for many stories, making much more out of it than was first intended. In the meantime, the idea that one might `` improve oneself '' by adopting the culture and manner of one 's `` betters '', instinctively assented to before World War II, was now greeted with resentment. Some of the terms and the ideas behind them were largely obsolete by the late 20th century, when, in the United Kingdom, reverse snobbery led younger members of the British upper and middle classes to adopt elements of working class speech ( see : Estuary English and Mockney ). Yet many, if not most, of the differences remain very much current, and therefore perfectly usable as class indicators. See also Shibboleth Countersignaling References ^ Jump up to : Ross, Alan S.C., Linguistic class - indicators in present - day English, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen ( Helsinki ), vol. 55 ( 1954 ), 113 -- 149. Jump up ^ Mitford, Nancy ( ed. ). 1956. Noblesse oblige. London, Hamish Hamilton, ' Note '. Jump up ^ Mitford, Nancy ( ed. ). 1956. Noblesse oblige. London, Hamish Hamilton. Jump up ^ Buckle, Richard ( ed. ). 1978. U and Non-U Revisited. London : Debrett. Jump up ^ Fox, Watching the English : The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour, pp. 75 -- 76 : `` Terminology Rules -- U and Non-U Revisited ''. Further reading Mitford, Nancy ( ed. ). Noblesse oblige. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1956. Reprinted Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0 - 19 - 860520 - X. Fox, Kate. Watching the English : The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2004. ISBN 0 - 340 - 81885 - 9 Cooper, Jilly. Class. Corgi Adult, 1999. ISBN 978 - 0 - 552 - 14662 - 3 Alan SC Ross. How to pronounce it. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1970. SBN 241 01967 2 Alan SC Ross. Do n't say it. Hamish Hamilton 1973, ISBN 978 - 0241024263 Charlotte Mosley ( ed. ) The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh. Hodder, London, 1996, at pp. 297 -- 394. ISBN 0 - 340 - 63804 - 4 External links Ross, Alan S.C., Linguistic class - indicators in present - day English ( 6.15 MB PDF ) Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=U_and_non-U_English&oldid=865312983 '' Categories : Sociolinguistics Social class in the United Kingdom Human communication English language 1950s in the United Kingdom Hidden categories : Articles needing additional references from July 2018 All articles needing additional references Wikipedia articles needing clarification from May 2017 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Deutsch Français 한국어 Русский Edit links This page was last edited on 23 October 2018, at 03 : 35 ( UTC ). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: who described words and phrases as u or non-u
Answer: British linguist Alan S. C. Ross, professor of linguistics in the University of Birmingham