Mind your language
`DON'T BE so condescending!' is quite a good put-down in a family argument. Like a charge of being patronising, it is difficult to counter.
It was not always thus. The monu- ment for Lord Bristol (who died in 1648) in Sherborne Abbey includes the following commendation: 'He was oblig- ing to his neighbours, generous and condescending to his inferiors.'
The moment of swing from hooray to boo word is caught by Trollope in his lively novel, Is He Popenjoy? (published in 1878). Miss Tallowax, who is rich but not quite a lady, is speaking highly of her niece's new husband: —As for Lord George, he was quite condescending." Lady George knew that praise was intended, and therefore made no objec- tion to the otherwise objectionable epi- thet.'
I suppose today we don't recognise the possibility of anyone being our supe- rior, and so discount the virtue of con- descension.
Dot Wordsworth
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