Where "down" is in Old England

[Judy Prince]

A quick nit to pick, Laurence, if it was you who set down the following:
'Just attested this from an audiobook of _Gaudy Night_, set in Oxford
(Dorothy Sayers, 1935)'

-----Dorothy L. Sayers was not happy being called 'Dorothy Sayers'.  She
wanted to be known as Dorothy L. Sayers or DL Sayers, saying that no one
would consider calling GB Shaw 'George Shaw.'

JB Prince, happily aka 'Judy'

On 18 August 2010 16:41, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Where "down" is in Old England
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 11:53 AM +0100 8/10/10, Damien Hall wrote:
> >Larry & Joel:
> >
> >>>I forget whether one goes down from one's university to London or up
> >>>to London; could it be either, depending on the context and worldview?
> >>
> >>I think one can be "sent down" from one's college (and also prep [do
> >>the British use that term] school to home, for misbehavior.
> >
> >Speaking as an Oxford graduate who is from London: when you're in Oxford
> >(or Cambridge), the University takes precedence, so I went down when I
> went
> >home. This is how it is in the University regulations dealing with being
> >sent or going down: the usages are absolute: no other places are
> mentioned,
> >the implication (and the economical analysis and usage) being that you go
> >down from Oxford and Cambridge to anywhere. Not many of my contemporaries
> >(1992-6) used the terms, though (I'm pretentious like that), so it may be
> >that the terms will be reinterpreted with reference to other standards of
> >up-ness in future. A complicating factor in the analysis could be that
> both
> >Oxford and Cambridge are North of London, so you would go 'down' to London
> >either in the prestige sense or in the common geographical sense; still,
> as
> >I say, my feeling is that in the Universities' usage, the prestige sense
> >takes precedence.
> >
> Just attested this from an audiobook of _Gaudy Night_, set in Oxford
> (Dorothy Sayers, 1935).
>
> Lord St. George (Peter Wimsey's nephew, an undergraduate at Oxford)
> is conversing with Harriet Vane, a mystery writer and Oxford graduate
> who has come from London supposedly to do some research on an obscure
> writer but really to solve a series of serious vandalisms.  She has
> just helped him sort out his unpaid bills.
>
> Harriet Vane:       "That's the lot."
> Lord St. George:  "Thank God. Now talk prettily to me."
> Harriet:               "No, I must get back now. I'll post these on the
> way."
> LSG::                 "You're not really going right away?"
> Harriet:               "Yes, right away. To London."
> LSG:                  "Wish I was you.  Shall you be up next term?"
>
> It's clear from earlier uses of "up" and "down" that these are not
> simply geographical (various students go, or are sent down from,
> Oxford to various parts of the country, and in other novels
> characters go up to London from various non-Oxbridgian sites), so
> here it is indeed a case of up to (and down from) Oxford trumping up
> to (and down from) London, as Damien predicts.
>
> LH
>
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