# Use of the word "reckon" in modern British English



## Tanemon (Feb 21, 2014)

I'd like to put this to people who may be originally from England, or be British and living in England, or simply read a lot of contemporary British prose.  I have a character (recently from Britain) in a story, and in dialogue he has said "I reckon ..." - and this word has been questioned by a reader of my draft.    (Small point, I know - but I'm curious.)

I was visiting Scotland and England five or six years ago, and was intrigued with English as spoken by the English.  Although it has disappeared from American and Canadian English except in dialect, in London the word _reckon_ - as in "I reckon this or that" and meaning "I'd guess" or "I deem" or "I suppose" - was in use by people of various classes.  As well, I used to notice that John Lennon (a speaker of Scouse?) used _reckon_, and even the character Lord Grantham ("Downton Abbey", set in the 1920s) has used it. :-?

My story is set in the early 1970s.  Am I off-base with the use of this word by a middle-class Englishman in his mid 30s?


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## PiP (Feb 21, 2014)

How do you define middle class? New money or old money? Occupation? London has it's own slang 


"I reckon so" ... 
"What d'you reckon, mate?" Londoner

I would use "I suppose" or "I guess". I can't recall using the word reckon until more recently.


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## Tanemon (Feb 21, 2014)

Thanks so much for your reply.


pigletinportugal said:


> How do you define middle class? New money or old money? Occupation? London has it's own slang


My character was born into the new business class, such as it was just around the time the Second World War began - not old money.  He's been educated as a biologist, graduating around 1960.  He's open-minded, friendly, athletic, and generally informal.




pigletinportugal said:


> "I reckon so" ...
> "What d'you reckon, mate?" Londoner
> 
> I would use "I suppose" or "I guess". I can't recall using the word reckon until more recently.


Where in the UK are you from?  (I reckon you're in Portugal now, though, eh?)


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## Potty (Feb 21, 2014)

Oi be reckonin' yer on ter a winner, one thing an' t'other!


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## PiP (Feb 21, 2014)

I no longer live in the UK. But I was born in Harrow (Middlesex) and grew up in Hertfordshire (pronounced by middle class as Hartfordshire). 

I'll email some of my friends and ask them about the use of the word "reckon".


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## PiP (Feb 21, 2014)

Potty said:


> Oi be reckonin' yer on ter a winner, one thing an' t'other!



Are you sure, Mr. Pots?


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## Potty (Feb 21, 2014)

I  don't think reckon has ever been slang in England. I think it's always been a word we use to mean what it means... or what we thought it meant. By my reckoning it's just been something that means what you've already mentioned: "I'd guess" or "I deem" or "I suppose".

Edit: As always, I run the risk of being proven incredibly wrong.


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## Gargh (Feb 21, 2014)

I'm not aware of it ever being slang, but the way it's used may indicate class... 'By my reckoning' is much more middle class than 'I reckon'. In the same way that 'Why I do believe' is more middle class than 'I believe'. 

The 1970s middle class was much more akin to what we would now consider to be upper class, with the distinctions between old and new money becoming less significant only as we moved toward the present day. Class boundaries have shifted perceptibly across the decades.


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## PiP (Feb 21, 2014)

Sorted, check out: Dictionary of Contemporary English

I was referring to London slang in general


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## Olly Buckle (Feb 21, 2014)

.Graduating about 1960 he would be a war baby, but he probably wouldn't be quite young enough to be fully part of the 'swinging sixties', his formative teen years would have been in the fifties when heroes were still those men who had fought their way across Europe. By the time I was growing up they were middle aged and we looked for something new, but my older brother's generation wore tweed jackets and smoked pipes in imitation of their elders. My father and brother were both biologists. Dad might have said 'he was of the opinion that', or less formally ‘believed that’; and reckoned up money or held someone to reckoning. He would have thought it 'a tradesman's expression’ rather than a professional person's way of talking'. My brother would have used ‘I believe’, or ‘I think’. Your character is right on the cusp of change regarding attitudes to such things and a sudden growth in educational opportunities.

I think, among educated people, ‘reckon’ would still only be used if there was an element of reckoning, eg “How long is the journey, well there is a walk each end, a train up and a short hop from the station on the bus, altogether I reckon it would take ...”, even if they were not really conscious of  doing it.  On balance I would go for ‘I think’ as the safe option, just as I used it at the beginning of this paragraph. ‘I guess’ would have sounded very American and false back then, ‘I deem’ has something of judgement about it and sounds a bit olde worlde, ‘I suppose’ would have been ‘womanish’, someone who didn’t really know.


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## Tanemon (Feb 21, 2014)

I thank all of you.  Very generous.  (I hesitated to say this, yet thought I should - I've been enjoying the discussion so much that I don't want to cap it off!  So anything more??)

Fascinating discussion, and useful to me.


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## Robdemanc (Feb 22, 2014)

This word has been highlighted in one of my stories by a reader. I have used phrases such as: "She looked as if she were reckoning him."
To me this meant she was working him out. But I was told not to use it.

"I reckon..." meaning "I suppose.." is in use amongst many English people I know. However I think it is a word used less than "I suppose".


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## Tanemon (Feb 22, 2014)

Robdemanc said:


> This word has been highlighted in one of my stories by a reader. I have used phrases such as: "She looked as if she were reckoning him."
> To me this meant she was working him out. But I was told not to use it.


According to what Olly Buckle had to say, your use of the word in this way should be natural (hence acceptable).  IOW, there is "some reckoning" involved.

Do you think your reader's premise is it that it's okay for dialogue (due to personal idiosyncrasies in people's speech), but not considered appropriate anymore for the author's descriptions?


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## Robdemanc (Feb 22, 2014)

Yes. Because I used it outside of dialogue it may not be correct usage. But I still think it is ok but I removed it anyway.


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## PiP (Feb 24, 2014)

Hi Tanemon,

Your question, regarding the use of the word "reckon" during the 70's, proved an interesting point of discussion during lunch today. Friends who were in the 30's in the 70s said they would not have used the word "reckon". Their word choice would have been "I believe" or " I think". The word was only used in relation to numbers as in reckoning or "ready reckoner". As for Downton Abbey, they doubted very much if this term would have been used in that era...

Hope this helps


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