Oxbridgy

At first sight, the explanation may be sought in the inbred, Oxbridgy atmosphere of the English literary circle.

Which is probably a snobby Oxbridgy thing – they tend to get most of their people into City jobs.

Her parents had not understood about university but then, in a way, Emily too had always felt uncomfortable with the more Oxbridgy elements of UCL (the classics students who sat in the quad pretending they were at Balliol).

The Atheneum crowd, very Oxbridgy and, for all their liberal airs, quite nose-up when it came to rube Irish geniuses in brown suits with the look of a pig farmer’s right-hand man, had yet to notice me and perhaps never would.