How culture affects sadness ⏲️ 6 Minute English

Hello. This is 6 Minute English  from BBC Learning English. I’m Sam.

And I’m Neil. When Helen Russell  was three years old, her new-born

baby sister died suddenly. Looking  back at that sad time, Helen remembers

making a big decision – she wanted  to be happy. She became a bestselling

author and wrote a book called, The  Atlas of Happiness. She got married,

and even moved to the famously  happy city of Copenhagen in Denmark.

But the sadness Helen felt didn’t  disappear, and the longer she lived abroad,

the more she wondered whether her  feelings were somehow connected to

being born in England, into a culture  where, traditionally, expressing your

emotions was discouraged.

In this programme, we’ll be  investigating how the way people express

sadness is influenced by their  culture, and, as usual, we’ll be

learning some new, useful vocabulary as well.

But first I have a question for  you, Neil. In English there are

many idioms which describe being  sad, including down in the dumps,

meaning that you feel miserable  and depressed. Also, emotions are

often associated with colours, for  example you might go red with anger,

or turn green with envy. But which  colour is associated with sadness? Is it:

a) yellow? b) blue? or, c) brown?

I think the answer is blue.

OK, Neil. We’ll find out  the later in the programme.

Around the world, cultures  express emotions very differently.

In Spain, flamenco performers  express their emotions with

colourful displays of song and dance,  whereas in Japan, crying is considered

weak and shameful. To discover more  about how British people express their

feelings, Helen Russell interviewed,  Thomas Dixon, a professor at the Centre

for the History of Emotion, for BBC  World Service programme, The Documentary:

The word sad, as you will know, Helen,  literally means sated or full. So,

its earliest use is in English, it means  being literally fed up, being full of

something sad or sated means heavy  and full. And then of course we

have this huge vocabulary of melancholy,  sorrow, grief, depression and

many, many other terms, and they  all mean slightly different things.

Professor Dixon explains that the  original meaning of the word sad was

‘full’ or fed up – a phrase which  today means being unhappy, bored or

tired of something which has been  going on a long time. For example:

everyone is fed up of Covid.

But fed up is just one of many words  to describe feelings of sadness,

each with a slightly different meaning.  One of them is melancholy, a kind

of intense and thoughtful sadness.  Another is grief - a strong sadness often

caused by the death of someone you love.

In Irish culture, melancholy is  expressed artistically in poems or songs.

And in other cultures, India for example,  grief can be expressed by professional

mourners who are paid to cry by the  family of the person who has died.

In England, however, big public  displays of emotion are uncommon.

But according to Professor Dixon  that wasn’t always the case. Here he

explains to BBC World Service programme,  The Documentary, how it was only

quite recently, during the time of Queen  Victoria and the British Empire, that

the English got a reputation for being repressed  - unable to show their true feelings and emotions.

By and large it's a Victorian, and then  Edwardian, and 20th century characterization.

As you can imagine, it fits with the era  of empire, of white British men going

around the world conquering it, and having  a stiff upper lip and ruling over the

people… in other parts of the world, and  believing themselves, the white Europeans,

to be superior… and one sign of  that superiority, and Darwin writes:

Englishmen rarely caught cry except  under the pressure of the acutest grief.

Professor Dixon says the Victorians who  ran the empire had a stiff upper lip.

These men believed they were better than  everyone else, and that to cry was a sign of

weakness. When we cry, our top lip starts  to wobble and so this gave rise to the

idiom a stiff upper lip, meaning to not  show your feelings when you are upset,  

even though it is difficult not to.

Fortunately, most Brits are less repressed  nowadays, but it’s still hard for

some people, especially men, to express  their feelings. Sometimes drinking

alcohol gives people the courage to say  what they are feeling, but this is not

so healthy and can even  increase feelings of depression.

It’s talking to someone about your  feelings that can really help, and keep

away the blues… and in saying that I  think I’ve answered your question, Sam.

I asked Neil which colour is  often associated with feeling sad.

And I said it was blue…

Which was… the correct answer, and it  gives us another idiom about sadness –

feeling blue. OK, let’s recap the  vocabulary we’ve learned from this programme

about the emotion of sadness, or in  other words, feeling down in the dumps.

If you are fed up of something, you’re  unhappy, bored, or tired of it, especially

if it’s been happening a long time.

Melancholy is a type of intense and  thoughtful sadness; and grief is a strong

sadness usually caused by someone’s death

The adjective repressed means unable to  show your true feelings and emotions.

And finally, the uniquely British idiom,  to keep a stiff upper lip, means not to

show your feelings when you’re upset,  even though it is difficult not to.

Hiding you feelings definitely won’t make you happy,

but making friends and learning something  new might, so remember to join us

again soon, here at 6 Minute English. Bye for now!

Bye!