Are Brits unusually sensitive to aspersions on their class origins?

[Shakester]

@gracer

Now I don’t understand what you mean. I don’t know who anybody’s parents are either. But even when meeting Americans I can often tell what position their parents likely hold in society. You can deduce from behaviour and other cues if they are likely to be people who have books in the house, if they travelled abroad, if they took their kids to art classes and sports or not. You can get it wrong, but often you’ll be right.

I agree with your overall point, but you’d most likely be dead wrong about me. I came from the bottom end of society; public housing, family surviving on my dad’s disability pension (disabled war veteran) - but I lost my poor kid accent without even trying, my family was dirt-poor but we were a family of readers who went to the library religiously, and I was always interested in things like fine art. I’ve always liked writing and put a fair bit of effort into spelling and grammar. So people assume I went to a nice school and lived in a nice house.

Now, I’m not the least bit interested in fooling anyone or pretending to be anyone I’m not, but you don’t have to look too hard to find stories of impostors tricking people into believing they’re from the upper classes. The assumption that people from poor backgrounds always talk, dress, and act like poor people is very foolish indeed. Some of us you’d never know unless we told you.

ETA: Yes I know you said “often” - I’m just saying “more often than you’d think”.

[PatriotGrrrl]

@Shakester

I came from the bottom end of society; public housing, family surviving on my dad’s disability pension (disabled war veteran) - but I lost my poor kid accent without even trying, my family was dirt-poor but we were a family of readers who went to the library religiously, and I was always interested in things like fine art. I’ve always liked writing and put a fair bit of effort into spelling and grammar.

That’s one example of what people mean by being poor financially but middle class culturally. Others would be the ‘starving artist’ type, or the grad student type.

Books and art are some of the most obvious class signifiers in the US. This may fade in time as more people choose ebooks, but I will probably never get rid of all my books even if I never read them. I know that if I am in a person’s house for the first time I notice whether they have any books.

Vocabulary and speech patterns are also a sign of someone’s social class. Accent, with some exceptions, generally isn’t. It’s not always obvious though, because middle class Americans are so used to code switching that we do it without realizing that we’re doing it.

Food choices also vary, the most obvious one being a preference for wine or mixed drinks vs. beer.

[LC_Strawhouse]

@Koxinga

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.”

I suspect that was made up and never actually happened (your co-worker’s story, not yours). It sounds like stealth-bragging about his working class credentials.