Public School Stereotypes: A Spotter's Guide
Created | Updated May 7, 2002
First, an explanation: the British public school system, like all great British things, is a ludicrous misnommer. There are few things less public than a public school. Basically, these are schools that the great and the good1 send their children for five years. Essentially, they part with fat wads of filthy lucre in order to get little Montague-Smythe out of their hair and away from home for five years in order to make a man out of him. This almost inevitably used to be in the same way 18 Stone men called Bubba make men out of what are ostensibly men already in prison showers. Basically what used to happen is that darling Monty would have his arse perforated, learn how to be obnoxious and be really good at latin, and then be given a really great job depending on what colour his old school tie was when he left2.
Clearly, nowadays everything is different. Public schools are great places full of love and happiness and learning and decent open-minded people who aren't even slightly arrogant, overbearing, decadent, sexually rapicious or even remotely devicive in any way3.
As with any institution, however, there are certain stereotypes that one might be able to identify. These are repeated here for those perhaps not intimately aquainted with that most noble of breeds, the public school boy4
1Read rich people2This might be something of a generalisation3AMERICANS! This is a lie!4FEMINISTS! Most of these schools actually accept, for financial reasons of course, girls. Indeed, there are single sex girls schools too. However, your author is demonstrably male and thus has limited experience of these places. Furthermore, his school doesn't contain any girls anyway.
