Among the English, gossip about one’s own private doings is reserved for intimates; gossip about the private lives of friends and family is shared with a slightly wider social circle; gossip about the personal affairs of acquaintances, colleagues and neighbours with a larger group; and gossip about the intimate details of public figures’ or celebrities’ lives with almost anyone. This is the distance rule. The more ‘distant’ from you the subject of gossip, the wider the circle of people with whom you may gossip about that person.

在英国人当中，个人隐私一般只在亲密朋友之间讨论；关于朋友及其家人的一些琐事也只会在稍微宽一点的社交圈子里讨论；熟人轶事、同事以及邻居等话题可以在更广的社交圈子里谈论；如果是某位名人的个人隐私，那么绝对是街知巷闻。这就是社交距离的规则。当你和谈论对象的距离越远时，你就会和更大的社交圈子的人谈论他们的事。

The distance rule allows gossip to perform its vital social functions – social bonding; clarification of position and status; assessment and management of reputations; transmission of social skills, norms and values – without undue invasion of privacy. More importantly, it also allows nosey-parker anthropologists to formulate their prying questions in such a roundabout manner as to bypass the privacy rules.

社交距离规则有助于八卦在社会中发挥重要作用——建立社会关系；澄清观点和地位；认同和管理个人的名誉；传播社会技巧和社会术语以及社会价值观。更重要的是，这些谈资也让那些喜欢窥探别人隐私的社会学家巧妙地达到目的，同时不侵犯别人的隐私。

If, for example, you want to find out about an English person’s attitudes and feelings on a sensitive subject, such as, say, marriage, you do not ask about his or her own marriage – you talk about someone else’s marriage, preferably that of a remote public figure not personally known to either of you. When you are better acquainted with the person, you can discuss the domestic difficulties of a colleague or neighbour, or perhaps even a friend or relative. (If you do not happen to have colleagues or relatives with suitably dysfunctional marriages, you can always invent these people.)但是，如果你想了解一个英国人关于某项敏感的话题，比如说婚姻，那么你就不能直接询问他自己的婚姻，而应该尝试谈论其他人的婚姻，最好是那些彼此都认识的名人的婚姻。当你和此人更熟后，你可以和他谈论一些身边同事或者邻居的家事，乃至是亲友的问题也无妨。（如果你的同事或者亲戚没有不正常的婚姻，你可以编造一些人。）