Is this a middle class saying?

Cringing is the default status on Mumsnet so it all sounds pretty normal.

Correct, was brought up to use toilet/bathroom no family or extended family use loo either.
Sure everyone has a word that makes them cringe that’s one of mine.

You're happy to announce you'd going to the toilet but cringe when you hear the word loo?

To provide society with people to carry out the various functions it needs.

Bog is a horrible, and one I rarely hear now days.

I hate the word loo and cringe when people say it.

I say I’m nipping to the toilet/bathroom.

This thread has been an Interesting read.

I can’t quite work out whether you’re being serious… just looked up Nancy Mitford anyway, and her list is about whether you’re upper class or middle class not whether you’re middle class or working class.

So using toilet would be signalling that they’re not upper class but are, instead, middle class. Everyone I know would say toilet (or loo) and I’m as middle class as they come (parents both university educated with professional careers and, on my mother’s side, I’m the fourth generation of female university graduate, let alone males, so definitely would not be considered working class by anyone’s definition). I would never say bog and neither would any of my relatives or friends, except as a joke. Toilet or loo, both perfectly acceptable, but not bog!

It appears that using bog might actually signify upper class because apparently the upper classes are so secure in their superiority that they don’t need to prove anything and will use the language of the “lower classes” without worrying 😂

Yes - whether they be working class, middle class or upper class. What do,you think a class system is for?

Which is all very convenient for people assured of their own class status.

I asked my boss about the toilet thing and he said he met some posh folk and the man said he was going to have a little me time. We both agreed it sounded like he was gong for a wank.

Class markers exist, that’s for sure, but she is accentuating her actual class status, not transcending it. To try and to fail is to be pretentious. What she is doing doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t have the slightest effect on her actual status.

@WhatWouldJeevesDo Oh I do agree about paper napkins. They are serviettes here . Happy Christmas.

Oh dear, what can the matter be?
Two ladies locked in the lavatory,
They were there from Sunday to Saturday...

I’m 56 and I occasionally like to tell a certain person not to ‘linger in the lavatory’. I suppose I would judge coarse language in certain situations but otherwise most words don’t bother me.
I know I should get over it but I don’t like it when people refer to a napkin if it’s made of paper.

He wrote light verse commenting on society. If he were around today, he'd have written the class pretensions poem about a 19-page thread on Mumsnet arguing about what terms truly middle and upper class people use for the crapper. It practically writes itself.

That’s where we differ. If they didn’t matter I don’t think he would have written the poem.

It’s because these things don’t matter, but she thinks that they do, that she is ridiculous.

I'm 63. I sometimes use the word lavatory. My children, in their late 20s never do.

In general terms I pay no attention to what it's called and certainly don't judge anyone for what they call it.

@RosesAndHellebores My mother might still occasionally say ‘the lav’. Lavatory was a very common word when I was young - as in widespread. I wasn’t as class-conscious then. We always giggled at the American pronunciation of laboratory.

@mrlistersgelfbride how much is it nowadays? It went up to £1 in Harrods in the 90s, after Fayed bought the shop; even in Scarborough in the spring it was 40p and the municipal cubicles accepted credit cards.

@WhatWouldJeevesDo and @IDoughnutKnow the fact that lavatory is regarded as archaic and lower class has made me resolve from now on to refer to the "lav". I have a vague recollection of my great grandfather referring to the "lav".

I’d say it was working and upper. Nancy Mitford and Molly Keane seemed to like it. The National Trust also seemed to favour it till very recently.

It is a bit archaic, but it's absolutely not any kind of middle class.

It was written in 1958, give it a break. Although I guess you could argue that MN's absolute obsession with class means the message is timeless.

Lavatory is archaic.

lavatory is lower MC. No one who considers themselves to be of solid MC stock would use it.

Loo, always loo.

As I said above the poet does a great job of making her ridiculous. The thing is she’s a caricature and why has the poet chosen to create such a caricature? If she weren’t such an extreme, would any one of those mistakes make her ridiculous? I get the impression he thinks it would. I don’t get the impression that she’s ridiculous because these things don’t matter.
You are more likely to walk into a lamp post if you’re looking at your feet. and the poem shows the path is strewn with obstacles.
There’s a choice between the risk of appearing coarse and the risk of appearing affected. Women are more likely to be criticised for being coarse so they fail by appearing affected. They have to concern themselves more with the minutiae of domestic life so the charge that they are only concerned with trivia is easier to make - even more so at the time.
I don’t see anything positive in the poem.