Jeeves' class position and "tells"

[wemblee.livejournal.com]

What-ho, folks whom I ask lots of questions of as of late. (So glad this comm is still around. It's been what, ten years? Good times. God, I'm old.)

So, I don't know much about the British class system, or the British class system in the late-1800s-1920s, or about that time period in general -- you get the picture.

My question: is there anything -- his accent, vocabulary, I have no idea -- that marks Jeeves as belonging to a different class than Bertie (and to a different class than servants below him on the hierarchy)? Are there "tells" that would be obvious to someone who grew up in that society?

Comments

[emma-in-oz.livejournal.com]

I'd definitely recommend watching *Gosford Park* and the extras where they interviewed some people who were in service in the 1930s about the social structures below stairs.

There were big differences between the upstairs servants, butlers, housekeeper and valets and the downstairs ones who ideally would never be seen. They ate separately and the upstairs servants had perfect English, no accents, ideally.

[wemblee.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[servicerevolver.livejournal.com]

I don't know about differences in accents, but Jeeves speaks very respectfully, using titles and honorifics and so forth, which could show that he is a servant. Plus, he would speak less formally when talking to other servants, and servants in lower places on the hierarchy would speak more respectfully to him.

Moreover, how Jeeves dresses would definitely be an indication of his class. As a valet, he'd be dressed in a neat, inconspicuous way. Other servants would dress in ways that revealed their class too, for example a butler would be dressed more formally than a valet. I searched online and found a description of what is worn by various servants in a book called Book of Etiquette by Lillian Eichler Watson.

Here's a bit of what it says about valets: "Indoors, in the evening and during the day, he wears dark gray or black trousers, white linen, a high-buttoned black waistcoat and a plain black swallow-tailed coat or one cut with short rounded tails. He wears a dark tie and dull leather shoes. He may also wear an inconspicuous pin in his tie and simple cuff-links; but a display of jewelry is not permissible."

So if you had often seen servants and knew what they wore, then you might be able to tell from Jeeves's understated attire that he is a valet. I should note that the book is American, though. I couldn't find a British source, but I don't think it would be too different? For some reason, all the etiquette books I can find from that era are American. :/

I think hats in particular were an important sign of class. Every etiquette book I could find said that valets wear derby/bowler hats. :)

[wemblee.livejournal.com]

Fascinating, thank you!

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

For the most part, I'm quite fogged by this issue as well. A couple random dialectical odds and ends jump out at me from canon:

-There's an early version of "Bertie Changes His Mind" where Jeeves thinks of Bertie as "the guv'nor" throughout the text (but never addresses him that way, directly).

-There's a story (can't remember which one) where Jeeves pronounces "nine" as "niyun" while speaking on the phone. My five seconds of internet research that I did just now tells me this is something that was taught in elocution classes for telephone operators back in the day. Obviously Jeeves was not a telephone operator, but maybe he received elocution lessons as part of his professional training?