New York artist Ben Shahn, "is Actones, Episodes, Nodes, Nodal Chains, Scenes, Serials, Nomoclones, Permaclones, Paragroups, Nomoclonic Types, Permaclonic Types, Permaclonic Systems and Permaclonic Supersystems. Culture is also Phonemes, Morphemes, Words, Semantically Equivalent Utterances, Behaviour Plans and many other things".

The lecturer, under his academic robes, is a solemn, long-necked, myopic stork. Only a birdbrain, is the message, could be capable of such stupendous gobblydegook. It is sad that a concept should be so abused as the word "culture" is, both by those who so enthusiastically make a living out of it, and by those stern British sociologists and anthropologists who are about as ready to admit that culture has a legitimate part to play iii social explanation as a Luther that indulgences might be a means to salvation.

Though they have mellowed somewhat recently, there was a time when if you called a British social anthropologist, a "cultural anthropologist", he would react with contemptuous amazement, unable to believe that anyone could fail to recognise the difference between a scientific student of social structure such as himself and, say, a Margaret Mead or some other purveyor of entertaining speculations to the Book of the Month Club. Nor have their sociologist cousins been immune from the feeling that culture, attitudes, value systems are somewhat improper concerns.

A recent Ph.D. thesis on the British engineering profession devoted its first, and only eloquent, chapter to pouring scorn on the notion that the low status accorded to engineers in British society might in any way be explained by the cultural ethos of Oxbridge in particular or of the British upper middle class in general.