# Are Brits unusually sensitive to aspersions on their class origins? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 15, 2014, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507 "2014-05-15T05:24:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![VeronicaVanity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/74df32/32.png) [@VeronicaVanity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VeronicaVanity)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/21 "2014-05-15T16:53:07Z")
I’m from the UK and sometimes yes some people can be sensitive especially if they come from an council estate because their are a lot of negative stereotypes (ie chavs which as been mentioned) about the North (which I live in) and coming from poorer backgrounds. Personally I’ve never been ashamed or been made to feel ashamed but I know it does happen. Poorer people usually have a lot of criticism for the rich and vice versa ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2014, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/22 "2014-05-15T16:55:15Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Without going into much detail, I have a coworker from the UK who is quite successful in his current position, but seems quite sensitive about his accent (fretting that he never picked up a proper educated way of speaking), the school he went to, and even the fact that he wasn’t actually born in London but a small town somewhere north of there. He says he never lets others’ attitudes get to him, and then goes on for twenty minutes about a manager at another company, who had gone to Oxford, had belittled his class background and called him things like “cheap seats.” To me that’s kind of an alien attitude, so just curious what you guys have observed. > > ETA: Or maybe most of the world is this way, and as an American I’m just clueless? The manager at the other company sounds like a nasty character, and I’m guessing Nasty Manager would, in the absence of perceived class difference, be rude about someone’s weight, or style of dress, or anything at all. > [@](#): > > …even the fact that he wasn’t actually born in London but a small town somewhere north of there. That just sounds weird: there a LOT of extremely UNposh areas in London. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/23 "2014-05-15T17:08:26Z")
> [@Celyn](#): > > That just sounds weird: there a LOT of extremely UNposh areas in London. Of course. And much of London votes Labour - or at least not Conservative. But the prevailing mindset of people from outside London recently seems to be that it’s a city of rich people doing coke off each other’s shoulders in a bath of Champagne while cooking up their latest Tory scheme. ---
**Author:** ![nicky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f0a364/32.png) [@nicky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicky)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/24 "2014-05-15T17:12:09Z")
I think the OPs coworker is a bit of a mentaller. There all sorts of socio-economic-cultural-racial prejudices lurking in thebritish national psyche, they just don’t map out into a simple lower/middle/upper class pattern. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2014, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/25 "2014-05-15T18:21:24Z")
> [@MrLee](#): > > ‘[Chav](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chav)’ refers to a quite specific social subgroup, members of which dress, speak and behave in ways deemed by many to be anti-social and uncivil. Is ‘chav-hatred’ snobbery? Perhaps, but I would argue against it being a simple matter of class division. Most working-class people are not chavs, and those who are in contempt of chavs are not only middle- and upper-class. I’m not British at all, but I always had the impression that “chav” was the British word for what we’d call “white trash” here in the US, except without any racial overtones, and emphatically NOT a blanket term for working/lower class people. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/26 "2014-05-15T19:37:11Z")
The word **bogan** in Australia is very similar to the word **chav** in UK usage, describing basically the same cultural group. Yes, there is an element of classism in both words, but they are at heart describing _cultural_ groups, not social classes. Which means you can come from a bottom-rung background in the poorest 'burbs, like I did, and never get called bogan (or chav) because you don’t act/dress/talk like one. It isn’t that difficult to lose the broadest elements of an accent. For that matter, it isn’t that hard to slip in and out of an accent depending on who you’re talking to. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2014, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/27 "2014-05-15T21:48:11Z")
In spite of obstinate class pride in working class roots, from what I’ve observed parents often push their kids to “talk proper”, since that’s perceived as necessary to get on in the world (i.e. ascend at least one rung of the class ladder). Meanwhile the kids themselves would rather use the local accent and fit in with their peers. As a result, they often end up using “inside” and “outside” accents with their parents and their peers respectively. FTR, as I think everyone around here knows, I’m American so I don’t have extensive examples on which to base this. But the few anecdotal examples I’ve heard are almost certainly authentic. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2014, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/28 "2014-05-16T05:11:48Z")
I knew one Yorkshire born barrister, married to a daughter of an Earl, earning tens of millions of pounds a year, who was very proud of his working class roots and the fact he never lost his accent. Except when pleading in Court, or at a Bankers dinner when he was suddenly all RP and proper like. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2014, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/29 "2014-05-16T06:12:57Z")
> [@gracer](#): > > Don’t forget that in England, having money is so shameful that we are forced to hide it by patching the elbows of our old jerseys, and by wearing Hunter wellies as the height of fashion. I laughed. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2014, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/30 "2014-05-16T06:22:52Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > The word **bogan** in Australia is very similar to the word **chav** in UK usage, describing basically the same cultural group. True, but you don’t see too many bogans self-identifying as such. There was a brief stint for the ‘Westies’ (Sydney bogans) reclaiming their righteous heritage, but call a Vic bogan a bogan now and you’ll likely get yourself bashed, slashed, or run over with their V8 Commodore 😃 ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2014, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/31 "2014-05-16T07:28:17Z")
“What could possibly matter more than to take a human being and change her into a different human being by creating a new speech for her? It’s filling up the deepest gap that separates class from class and soul from soul.” ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2014, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/32 "2014-05-16T07:42:17Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Maybe someone who is a fraud. Someone from a lower class background who has both acquired a lot of money and taken on a fake veneer of upper class accent and mannerisms (which someone who went to Oxford would be particularly well placed to do.) If he feels himself to be a fraud in the class he is trying to pass as, he might well lash defensively by belittling people of undisguised lower class origins doing high-status, well rewarded work. Now there’s a thought. Would be funny that he would fail in quite a significant aspect of being middle class, wouldn’t it… Here is an illustration of how these things sometimes come up, and the way it would play out in my experience. I took a friend to visit my grandmother, who another friend described as “the poshest person I’ve ever met, but she’s still dead nice”. My granny came and asked if we wanted to come and have [pain au chocolat],\* to which my friend said with a big grin: “I don’t know what that is, I’m not posh! I’m working class! I don’t drink coffee, though…?” It was my grandmother who was mortified, not my friend. \*Actually, I can’t remember what it was. It was a French pastry, but I can’t remember what. ETA: “Chavs” are simply people who walk around with trackie bottoms tucked into their socks and terrible haircuts. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2014, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/33 "2014-05-16T08:05:35Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Interestingly, when I first heard of the word and asked him about it, my coworker seemed to acknowledge himself as a “chav,” for whatever that’s worth. Clearly not a Chav if he’s got a job. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2014, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/34 "2014-05-16T08:42:09Z")
People are definitely aware of class, but I’m not sure they’re more sensitive about it. The current cabinet is made almost entirely of public school (ie. very posh private school) millionaires who keep enacting policies that target those on the lowest incomes. And there are constant TV shows set up to attack the poor, like “Benefits Street,” which was set on a street where actually most of the working-age residents were in regular work, but they only filmed the ones who weren’t and acted like they were all there was. The BBC has several shows like this - Saints or Scroungers is one. So it’s not as if anyone is imagining attacks on the working-class poor. People will quite commonly take the piss out of rich people too, but the rich people remain rich and powerful. It’s not quite the same as govt-sponsored attacks on the poor. When some people say “chav” they mean poorly-behaved, trashy, etc, not just poor, but some people do also use “chav” as a broad term for working class. The comment about “where will the chavs but their Christmas presents now?” was obviously in the broader sense, rather than talking about disreputable behaviour. I’ve definitely heard it used that way, particularly by people who are quite a long way from being poor. And it almost always does include lack of money as part of the criteria; smash up a pub, roll around the city centre drunk and yelling at girls, and if you’re poor you’re a chav, if you’re rich you’re a member of the Burlington Club. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2014, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/35 "2014-05-16T11:19:16Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Clearly not a Chav if he’s got a job. And wears lots of naff bling, sponges off the state with a cunning plan to avoid taking up a professional career and provide itself with free accommodation supplied by tax payers by spawning multi coloured mini chavs. A bit like the Queen. ---
**Author:** ![Echo\_Charlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Echo\_Charlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Echo_Charlie)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/36 "2014-05-17T14:04:38Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > The current cabinet is made almost entirely of public school (ie. very posh private school) millionaires who keep enacting policies that target those on the lowest incomes. Right… other than William Hague, Danny Alexander, Theresa May, Phillip Hammond, Vince Cable, Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Eric Pickles, Justine Greening, Alistair Carmichael, Patrick McLoughlin, Sajid Javid and David Jones, who all attend comprehensives or grammar schools. ---
**Author:** ![Echo\_Charlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Echo\_Charlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Echo_Charlie)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2014, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/37 "2014-05-17T14:12:43Z")
ATTENDED, I mean. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/38 "2014-05-17T18:59:54Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m not British at all, but I always had the impression that “chav” was the British word for what we’d call “white trash” here in the US, except without any racial overtones, and emphatically NOT a blanket term for working/lower class people. I think it’s closer to “wigger,” Think Kevin Federline. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/39 "2014-05-17T19:09:34Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > I think it’s closer to “wigger,” Think Kevin Federline. Right. I have never been able to wrap my mind around British class distinctions especially when they have concepts like financially poor upper-class people (that still makes no sense to me) but Chavs are easy to understand because we have direct corollaries in the U.S. Chavs are just young white, male (usually) wannabe gangsters with a particular (odd and distinctive) sense of fashion plus their own vocabulary. I don’t think their existence says anything about real class distinctions at all any more than the fact that many white suburban males in the U.S. wear baggy pants and fancy sneakers just like people from the real 'hood do. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2014, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507/40 "2014-05-18T09:34:03Z")
Some of the people I have known have been quite sensitive about the place they held in British society. And some of them have had a distinctly antagonisitic attitude to “the other side” of society. Almost perhaps like the N/S or B/W or even perhaps the Coast/Interior divide in the USA. Not necessarily a matter that they banged on about for 20 minutes, but a conviction that people in their class had been cheated by the cultural elite. Of course, these were all, like the character mentioned in the original post, people who had left the UK. Perhaps that matters. The standard English position about Aus society is that we have much less class structure than the English, which is a good thing, but that we do have a class structure, we just don’t notice it, which is a mark of our naivity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-brits-unusually-sensitive-to-aspersions-on-their-class-origins/688507.md?page=3)