Traditional, unacceptable ways of referring to members of the working class have been replaced by a term which is not only acceptable among some comedians, politicians and journalists, but is an almost obligatory part of their everyday discourse: chav. Just when you thought it was safe to drop your h's, snobbery is right back in fashion.
No country could have embraced a newly minted form of social insult with more enthusiasm and expertise than the English have with the concept of the chav. It seems that when it comes to the subtle gradations of class disdain, we remain world leaders. Other nations may try to emulate our easy, natural snobbery but somehow it never quite comes off. Like an English chef working on French haute cuisine, foreigners have the ingredients and the expertise but somehow their snobbery seems forced. With the English, it comes naturally.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Class Snobbery Not Dead in England
...thank God.
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1 comment:
It's interesting (to me) that the clas markers of chavs are all actually of a debased lower-middle, rather than authentic working-class. Probably the latter no longer exist...
Mind you, the users of "chav" are mostly middle middle-class themselves, so it's hardly a resurgence of class consciousness.
AM
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