Non fiction

Class

First class letters. Tourist class. Middle class cars. Classrooms. Working class houses. Business class seats. Class struggle. Reading class. World class university. Social class. Third class packages. Math class. Lower-income classes. Word class.  Second class tickets. Class distinctions. The class of ’98. Upper class salary. Proper class. Second class honours. A class act.  The blue-collar class. Academic class. Age class. Classmate. Art Class. Class mark. Ruling class. Class A carrots. First class honours.

When I was in Oxford this weekend I saw a posting box with “First class letters”, “Second class letters” and “Newspapers and Packets”. This seemed really strange to me, what are first or second class letters? I started joking about it, saying to my friends, well, I did not write this letter that proficiently so I should probably place it in the second class posting box.

In this string of words I wanted to show for how many different things the word “class” is used in the English language. It may be that in Dutch we also use the word “klas” or “klasse” for these expressions but the connotation is entirely different in the Netherlands. There is no social class divide, no classification of people based on their name or on what is on their bank accounts. The English word is charged with meaning. Here, the universities are classified in order from old to new. Their students are classified in some extent by the choice of university, how they did get in, and how they are performing. Class struggle, the urge to want to break free from the class your parents are in, the need for mobility may also play an important role in the English student's experience.

Lara van Dooren

© 2014