Also also hard to fake and easy to slip in. You throw in a Latin quote in your conversation and either the other person gets it and you both know you're the proper class, or they don't and you both know you're higher up the ladder than they are.
Cost of a signal is not necessarily just the resources required to emit it, but also what that signal represents to others. Throwing slurs around doesn't take any money but can be very costly.
Also also hard to fake and easy to slip in. You throw in a Latin quote in your conversation and either the other person gets it and you both know you're the proper class, or they don't and you both know you're higher up the ladder than they are.
This is repeatedly used in Yes, Minister to demonstrate the large class gap between Sir Humphrey (and Bernard) and Jim Hacker.
Also see Count Binface (classics, Oxford) vs Sky News https://youtu.be/MCCVt8IhJkA?t=130
si tacuisses philosophus mansisses ;)
Yup. It’s the shibboleth. Cuius regio, eius religio, and all that.
Spent my childhood at boarding school having my head stuffed full of Latin and Greek. Forgotten all of it.
> Signals must to be costly in order to be effective
Utter bollocks.
A safety pin though ones nose and a pair of ripped tights costs nothing, and signals who one is (or wishes to be) very loudly and clearly.
Cost of a signal is not necessarily just the resources required to emit it, but also what that signal represents to others. Throwing slurs around doesn't take any money but can be very costly.
That signal certainly sounds pretty costly to me, it would not be effective at signaling intelligence though.
If you judge intelligence by appearance, then you are rather foolish; somewhat to your detriment.
1 reply →