English vice

Etymology
From various authors' descriptions of certain vices as particularly common or representative among the English.

Proper noun

 * , overeating.
 * , particularly vacuous, base, and tedious moralism.
 * , particularly sentimental royalism and deference to class and aristocracy.
 * 1) * 1908, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, All Things Considered, French and English (additional link: )
 * If the Frenchman saw our aristocracy and liked it, if he saw our snobbishness and liked it, if he set himself to imitate it, we all know what we should feel. We all know that we should feel that that particular Frenchman was a repulsive little gnat. He would be imitating English aristocracy; he would be imitating the English vice. But he would not even understand the vice he plagiarised: especially he would not understand that the vice is partly a virtue.
 * 1) * 1909, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles, Chapter XXVII: “Some Policemen and a Moral”, §8:
 * There enters into such things a great national sin, a far greater sin than drink—the habit of respecting a gentleman. Snobbishness has, like drink, a kind of grand poetry. And snobbishness has this peculiar and devilish quality of evil, that it is rampant among very kindly people, with open hearts and houses. But it is our great English vice; to be watched more fiercely than small-pox. If a man wished to hear the worst and wickedest thing in England summed up in casual English words, he would not find it in any foul oaths or ribald quarrelling. He would find it in the fact that the best kind of working man, when he wishes to praise any one, calls him “a gentleman”. It never occurs to him that he might as well call him “a marquis”, or “a privy councillor”—that he is simply naming a rank or class, not a phrase for a good man.
 * , particularly casual complacency towards corruption.
 * , particularly flagellation (whipping and spanking).
 * 1) * 1978, Ian Gibson, The English Vice: Beating, Sex, and Shame in Victorian England and After, Duckworth, ISBN 9780715612644, title.
 * 2) * 2002 July 1, Quana Jones, "We Have a Winner: 'The English Vice' Explained", Dr Weevil:
 * The &lsquo;English vice&rsquo; is spanking on the buttocks sometimes refered [sic] to today as 'corporal punishment... The English 'public' school system used corporal punishment for many years and it is claimed that many an English schoolboy acquired a taste for such treatment that carried on into his adult life. You may recall 's many references to Eton's block and 'birching', claiming that his own proclivity for that particular pasttime [sic] had been cultivated by such school practices. Of course, there is also the other opinion. That is, that the English vice is whatever the French say it is. I supposed the same could be said to be true about the "French vice".
 * , particularly with domestic trappings resembling a second household.
 * , particularly with regard to the poor.
 * , particularly flagellation (whipping and spanking).
 * 1) * 1978, Ian Gibson, The English Vice: Beating, Sex, and Shame in Victorian England and After, Duckworth, ISBN 9780715612644, title.
 * 2) * 2002 July 1, Quana Jones, "We Have a Winner: 'The English Vice' Explained", Dr Weevil:
 * The &lsquo;English vice&rsquo; is spanking on the buttocks sometimes refered [sic] to today as 'corporal punishment... The English 'public' school system used corporal punishment for many years and it is claimed that many an English schoolboy acquired a taste for such treatment that carried on into his adult life. You may recall 's many references to Eton's block and 'birching', claiming that his own proclivity for that particular pasttime [sic] had been cultivated by such school practices. Of course, there is also the other opinion. That is, that the English vice is whatever the French say it is. I supposed the same could be said to be true about the "French vice".
 * , particularly with domestic trappings resembling a second household.
 * , particularly with regard to the poor.
 * , particularly with regard to the poor.
 * , particularly with regard to the poor.
 * , particularly with regard to the poor.
 * , particularly with regard to the poor.
 * , particularly with regard to the poor.
 * , particularly with regard to the poor.

Translations

 * French: vice anglais