I was desperately looking for a book of some sort to do my paper on, when my sister suggested Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe. I was rather dubious about the book at first, since the cover didn't look British at all, as there was a picture of a young man and a woman who looked more Asian than British to me. But the back-cover presented a picture of the author, who looked very British, smoking a pipe and having his glasses on. I also learned that critics in newspapers, such as The Guardian, Daily Telegraph and New Yorker, acclaimed the use of working-class language in the book. Then I looked inside and saw sentences like "Hey, mate, watch what yer doin', can't yer? Yo' an' yer bloody grett clod-'oppers." and decided to read the book, since it seemed to be just the thing I was looking for.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning turned out to be better than I had expected and it took me only two days to finish it. It's a story about Arthur Seaton, a young man who works in a bicycle factory in Nottingham. He works hard, so he gets enough money to spend on clothes and alcohol. Drinking in the pubs, fishing on a riverbank and having sex with married women are his main interests in life. In the beginning of the book, Arthur is in a pub called White Horse with Brenda, who is his lover and married to his friend. Arthur wins a drinking contest, and after vomiting on people in the pub, he ends up in Brenda's bed. After he has been carrying on with her for some time, Brenda gets pregnant and doesn't want to keep the baby. So they bring about an abortion by Brenda sitting in a tub of hot water, drinking lots of gin. After that Arthur meets Winnie, Brenda's sister, and ends up in her bed. As rumours start to spread, Winnie's husband gets to know that Arthur is having an affair with her, and beats him up. Arthur is also courting a young girl called Doreen, but misses the excitement of married women, so at first he doesn't seem so serious about it. But in the end he is going to get married to her, so I guess he is serious, after all.

Arthur is a rebel; he doesn't like authorities of any kind. He doesn't like the army, because it limits his freedom, so he escapes from his refresher course to get drunk in a pub. He doesn't like the management of the factory he's working in, or the tax authorities, because they are cutting his pay down. Also the political parties get their bit of Arthur's hatred; he calls them "big fat Tory bastards" and "Labour bleeders" (p. 35 & 36).

Alan Sillitoe knows what he is writing about. He was born and brought up in Nottingham, and left school at the age of fourteen, and worked in various factories, including a bicycle factory. During the Second World War he was a wireless operator in Malaya, where he got wounded, and received the disability pension. As a writer, he is a "self-made man". In the introduction to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, he writes that he had no theme in his head, except the joy of writing, the sweat of writing clearly and truthfully, the work of trying to portray ordinary people as he knew them, and in such a way that they would recognize themselves. Perhaps that is what makes this book so easy to read, and the characters so lively.

Since Arthur Seaton is a factory worker, he speaks working-class English. Sillitoe uses both words and pronunciation which are usually associated with lower class. There are also some expressions considered ungrammatical.

Words:

• Men are usually referred to as blokes, mates, pals or lads. "... and the palliest bloke in the pub." (p. 10)
• Women are called tarts or skirts when they don't hear, and when Arthur talks to them, he uses the word duck like people usually use dear. "... a cozy world of pubs and noisy tarts ..." (p. 39) (to Brenda) "Yo' goo down, duck," (p. 21)
• There are several words linked to drinking, such as boozing, tight (drunk), publican (a bartender) and binge (drinking of several days in a row) "Yer've bin boozin'!" (p. 17) "...or you could go on a ten-day binge and get rid of all you'd saved." (p. 27)
• After enough of boozin' people just conk out (faint) and the next morning when they have a hangover they search their pockets for lolly (money); which consists of bobs (a shilling = 5p), tanners (a sixpence), quids (now one pound sterling) and nickers (one pound sterling).
• Also some words which, more or less, mean crazy, are daft, barmy, crackers, gett, and batchy. "You're crackers, Arthur." (p. 29) "Christ, I've never known anybody as daft as yo', you cross-eyed gett," (p. 91)
  Other miscellaneous words:
• "... that I was carrying on with his missis?" (wife) (p.36) "They'd nark on their own mother, some people." (tell the police) (p. 113)
• "...but what's the good o' going wi' a married woman if you've got to use a frenchie?" (a condom) (p. 69)
• "... because two big swaddies are after you." (soldiers) (p.99)
• "Where's your digs, mate?" (home) (p. 82)
• "Tarr-ar, Dad." (p. 29) "Cheerio, see you tomorrow." (p. 153) (goodbye)

Pronunciation:

There are certain common words that are written like they are pronounced in Nottingham among the working class. The regional dialect of Nottingham is the Midlands' dialect, so this also affects the way people speak in the book.

• Summat is used for "something", as in "Say summat, mate," (p. 16)
• Owt is used for "anything".
• "Always" is written as Allus.
• Tek and mek are used instead of "take" and "make", bin for "been".
• Some words with "-self" are written as -sen, for instance "I'd keep it all mysen..." (p.35)
• Sometimes "l" is replaced with "w", "old" becomes owd, "told" towd and "cold" cowd.
• "Besides, he's on nights, ain't he? (isn't) (p. 51)
• "Don't worry, duck, he wain't come. (won't) (p. 51)
• "...when are yer goin' ter get up? Yer'll be late fer wok." (you, to, you, for work) (p. 24)

There's also a tendency to drop initial "h" and also "g", if it's in an -ing word. And also -th in "with" is dropped. "I took 'is votin' card out of 'is coat pocket wi'out 'im knowin'..." (p. 36)

According to Kemppainen, some words like "tomorrow, follow" are written as "tomorrer, foller", which results from the fact, that -ow is reduced to a schwa, when it's pronounced, and all words with an -er ending are pronounced with a schwa, like worker. I guess the same thing goes with Brenda's friend Em'ler, I think her name is really Emily, but is pronounced like /emle/ or something. This is only speculation, though.

Pleece is once used for "police".
Trubble is also once used for "trouble".

Not-so-grammatical expressions

• The use of "was" as second person singular in past tense. "You was only telling me you believed in communism..." (p. 35)
• The word "as" instead of "who". "Never trust a bloke as says that," (p. 79)
• Them is used for "those", as in "Tek them blokes as spout on boxes outside the factory sometimes." (p. 35)
• This streak caught my eye, when I was reading the book the first time; use of "don't let's", although grammar books say it is an informal way of saying "let's not". I haven't seen it in any other book for a while. "Don't let's stay down here long, Arthur," (p. 19)
• There seems to be very little use of the double negative, which I found interesting, since it's usually connected with working- class speech. "It don't mek no bit o' difference," (p. 58)
• Not only "herself" is used, but also hisself, which is wrong.

As there would be no end to these things, I'll stop now, having covered maybe a third of the interesting words and phrases that exist in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

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Sources:

• The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1993
• The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, 1988
• Substandard Elements in Alan Sillitoe's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Loneliness of the Long-distance Runner, and
• A Start in Life. A master's graduate thesis by Jorma Kemppainen, 1977
• English - Finnish General Dictionary, WSOY 1990