U and non-U saw their birth in 1954, in volume 55 of Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. A.S.C. Ross’s ‘Linguistic Class-Indicators in Present-Day English’ was presented to the world in the same learned journal that later published the linguistic theories of Noam Chomsky, though much of the world waited in ignorance until 1956, when Ross’s ideas were collected by Nancy Mitford in Noblesse Oblige.
Ross’s thesis was that in England, ‘it is solely by its language that the upper class is clearly marked off’. He conceded that some non-linguistic markers remained, such as playing the game real tennis or a dislike of the telephone. Nowadays that might perhaps be mobiles.
Ross acknowledged that verbal class-indicators changed over the years. More than half a century after his learned paper, I wonder if something of the same kind can be accomplished through trade names. It is not a simple matter of prices.
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