Things I'm Looking Forward To Doing Now That I'm British: Number Two

[nanila]

2. Tutting, in all its nuanced forms. Tutting is the beautiful art of expressing everything from mild disapproval to the full weight of immense rage. The gradations of tut are not immediately obvious to outsiders, and indeed I believe I'm still but an amateur when it comes to interpretation. I can discern the situations that call for a mild frown (e.g. a push from a fellow commuter unaccompanied by an exchange of apologies no matter who was at fault). I can tell when a more serious crime has been committed, e.g. queue-jumping, because a click of the tongue will accompany the tut. And I can tell when a crime of unforgivable proportions has been committed because actual words, e.g. a muttered rebuke, are allowed into the tut. But I'm sure there are shades of tut that I have yet to add to my repertoire.

I have yet to venture to express a tut myself, as I feel I'm too new a Brit to be tutting just yet. I look forward to the occasion of my first tut.

Comments

[kerrypolka]

Last week I managed to get someone to stop trying to queue-jump and abashedly join the back of the queue at a Pret without even looking at him by clicking my tongue quietly. I was a bit surprised at how effective it was (not to mention DRUNK ON MY OWN POWER).

[kaberett]

YESSS

[nanila]

AS YOU SHOULD BE. You are mastering the tut!

[askygoneonfire]

I found myself grinning ear to ear as I read this. Oh my, how true - and how much I fear acting in a manner that would put me on the receiving end of a tut!

Yesterday I tutted on the bus as a man permitted his small boy to jump all over the seat and grab my hair/hit my shoulder as he bounced and grabbed my seat, it didn't prompt the man to action, but it did trigger another, consolatory tut from the man sitting next to me....that'll show him!

[nanila]

You know, I think I may need to add something to this point, because it's not just the delivery of a tut that matters, it's how you receive it. "Being absolutely mortified upon receiving a deserved tut" is definitely a British reaction. Most tourists don't realise they've been chastised, let alone to what degree.

[liseuse]

I do love a well deployed tut. So satisfying! I seem to tut on buses quite a lot.

[nanila]

Buses are one of the places that bring lots of people together in confined spaces. It behooves us all to be mindful of, and appropriately administer, tuts in those situations.

[quinara]

Don't forget to scale up the tuts should be anywhere with a bar! Bad etiquette in pubs is particularly egregious and one of the few places I have been known to employ actual muttered rebukes that carry... Although it's certainly rude to try and push through more than one row of people, it is of course much worse to complain to the bar staff about not getting served. I reserve special contempt for people who think bar staff are there to find them in the crowd, rather than there to answer when you plonk yourself in front of them with an order. Ooh... *blood boils*

[nanila]

Ooh, yes. I'm always on high alert for tuts when at the bar. Because unless you're genuinely really drunk, you KNOW the order in which you and subsequent persons arrive at the bar.

[kaberett]

yessssssss :D

[nanila]

:D :D :D

[foxfirefey]

metaquotes?

[nanila]

Sure, I would be flattered!

[sunflowerinrain]

Good point! Perhaps a little practice among friends, until you feel perfectly confident?

My upbringing was English enough that the tut is automatic, to the point that sometimes I have tutted before thinking, in circumstances where it would have been tactful (not to say safer) to refrain.

Have you noticed the slow click-tut which denotes "thinking about what you just said, not sure yet if I agree"?

Surely someone must have written a paper...

[nanila]

Have you noticed the slow click-tut which denotes "thinking about what you just said, not sure yet if I agree"?

YES! Although I hadn't identified it for what it was until you spelled it out. Several of my work colleagues do that all the time!

Sorry for all the exclamation marks! I learned a new tut! I am excited!

[kerrypolka]

I don't know if you've read Watching the English, which is a pop anthropologist's jokey take on English culture, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a subsection on "social shaming - non-verbal mouth sounds" or similar.

[sunflowerinrain]

Timely! First sketch -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b039q252/John_Finnemores_Souvenir_Programme_Series_3_Episode_2/

[pbristow]

Dammit, you beat me to it! =:o}
The first sketch starts at 03:41, bizzarely, due to all the presention spiel/skit before we get to the actual programme!

[sunflowerinrain]

The only thing I don't like about 4Extra on iplayer is the padding at beginning and end of each recording, but it's a very minor niggle.

I'm having a small-world-syndrome moment... didn't I just reply to a comment you left in m'sister's DW? :)

[pbristow]

You did indeed! =:o}

The "padding" is because it's an automated service: They slice the audio stream a bit before the published expected start time at the start, and just after it at the finish. That way they (almost always!) avoid accidentally slicing off part of the programme you wanted, if it was delayed or if the stream-slicing algorithm gets its timing wrong. Otherwise they'd have to pay someone to sit and edit the files more accurately.

You can always skip ahead, though, by clicking ahead on the timeline. It usually only takes me two or three clicks to get within a few seconds of the start of the show.

[sunflowerinrain]

The curious thing is that 4Extra's recordings have so much padding, but those of Radio 4 don't (nor Radio 3).

[pbristow]

That's because of their "programme within a programme" format, i.e. their "zones"; which in turn is all part of the fact that 4Extra is itself an automated service, playing out the zones in rotation from a server (you'll note that exactly the same zone, with the same links, etc. gets played out several times a day, and the only time explicit start times get mentioned is *between* zones: Even those bits are pre-recorded (to insure against any fluffs or fumbles and make sure the overall timing stays on track), and just played out by the computer at the top of the required hour.

The zones are all a specific number of hours long (usually 3 hours), minus a couple of minutes for continuity announcements specific to the time of day. Each zone is split into 1 hour or half-hour segments. The EPG advertises the start times of the inner programmes, but sometimes that's actually the start time of the "zone" it's included in (as it is in the above case), or of the standardised 30 minute slot , which only has a 24 minute main programme in it (because it was originally made for a station that had 25 minute slots), and 3 minutes of padding either side.

One of the benefits of the zoning system is that you can be a bit more flexible about the start times of the individual programmes - for example if you think *this* 28 minutes Goon Show deserves a longer introduction than *that* 23 minute Dead Ringers, you can do that, and stay within the alloted time for your zone. The downside then is that a programme's start or end time might slip outside the alloted 30 minute slot in the programme guide, so the automatic stream-slicer for the iPlayer has to allow more margin for error before and aft.

Clear? =:o}

(If you're wondering how I know all this stuff: I once tried to get a hospital radio station to take up the idea of such a service for their overnight sustaining service, instead of just relaying a music channel that was laready available on the hospital headphones on its own channel. I was going to record a 3hr 55m block of comedy programes (one block for each day of the week) onto a VHS tape and put it in a player on auto-repeat for the night, with a pre-recorded loop of our own jingles that would play out while the main tape was rewinding. I figured this would be more attractive to any bored insomniac over-50 patients than "Dance Hits '95" or whatever!

10 year later, BBC Radio 7 (now 4Extra) basically nicked my idea! =:o}

[caulkhead]

I was in the studio for that one!

[nanila]

Surely your tutting credentials must have leveled up while you were sitting there.

[sunflowerinrain]

Envious! He is so witty and intelligent. And, of course, so adorable as Arthur.

[nanila]

That's fantastic. I shall add the link when I do my roundup post of these posts.