What makes you middle class?

@TheSolstices I'm Irish. Please correct my subjective opinion further 🤣

This is nuts! You are not MC because you like some things and are bad at others. Or because you find some other people common!

Can anyone actually put forward any credible points as to why we should believe they are MC?!

@Superlambaanana and my house is only fairly clean.

@LovelyTheresa aw jaysus Theresa, you just keep proving my point over and over again by calling people common!

Alright, if you're so certain you're MC, give us your creds. What makes you so sure you are?

It seems to me, and I am deeply and very boringly middle class on every possible measure, that it mainly bothers you. I know I am middle class. I am appalling at tennis and music (and not interested beyond politely). I like history and politics and science and thrillers: I read rather than watching much tv because TV is so slow and I get bored waiting for the obvious.

@TheSolstices yip. That and keeping your house meticulously spick and span because only dirty WC people have dirty houses. (Meanwhile the actual artistos don't give a shit about pristine houses, do seriously tacky stuff like shopping in Lidl, and wear wacky/ dirty/ moth eaten clothes when not in town)

Actually, it was @Notmyuser who was very rude to me and smugly pointed out that I was not middle class, although I most definitely am. She then went on a rant defending the Kardashians, while claiming to 'not follow' them (it always amuses me that their fans often won't even admit to being fans: it's as if they realise how naff it makes them to be fans so they pretend not to be, all the while getting angry at people who see them for the cheap, common grifters that they are) The only people who are being 'Hyacinth Bucket' are the people who associate wealth with class. They probably also insist that their guests take their shoes off.

This post wins the thread.

Well done, @rainbowbee — that is the authentic note of the British lower-middle class, clutching your single ‘good-quality’ jumper and saucepan and priding yourselves on your ‘nice manners’, grammar, and un-faketanned skin, in horror lest someone less well-versed in UK class shibboleths might think you were working-class.

Nowadays it's a pointless, meaningless 'moniker' with the current mc referring only to recent history and inclusion can be easily bought, sold and learned.

It only had meaning when their was a vast amount of uk people who were proud of their wc status with value given to their work.

The mc became meaningless since wc work became worthless.

@LovelyTheresa I don't think @Notmyuser got angry. Like some other posters, including me, she was just pointing out how Hyacinth Bouquet you are being with your snobbish, condescending tone.

It's hard. But interesting to see what others think. I think it's very little to do with money. It's the values with which you are brought up. Correct grammar. Correct table manners. Respect for others and your community. Cooking from scratch. Possessions that might not be fancy but are 'real' eg knowing that one or two good coats or jumpers or saucepans are better-serving than lots of glitzy cheap stuff. An interest in education and the wider world. Knowing not to make your physical appearance too fake. You can be poor and classy and you can be wealthy and tacky.

Born that way. People on here tie themselves up in such knots trying to prove themselves one way or the other, but irl you either are or you aren’t, and it isn’t a reflection of anything except your family history. Such a waste of time. People who set so much store by it are either trying to be something they aren’t, or they have absolutely nothing else about them.

With a regional accent, or inflection, it indicates your origins but it's less of a classist definition as long as your grammar and speech is comprehensible. Nothing would make Rab C Nesbitt (in character) anything other pure Kilmarnock but the actor, Gregor Fisher, is and must be for professional success, much more varied.

I apparently speak RP, and could originate from any corner of the UK. Only a person from my region would recognise the "tells" in my phrasing.

Of course you can, but many people from working class backgrounds like to believe you can’t. E.g. my MIL still insists she’s working class (because she was as a kid) but is the epitome of middle class. It’s pretty irritating.

I’m also from a working class background but would be taking the piss to claim I’m still “working class”.

Yes but we would know he was one of them. Not UM or UC.

I mean, not that it matters 😄 but having a regional accent of any type is an immediate signifier.

I agree about UM and UC accents but most English people wouldn't be able to tell if Gordon Brown were from a working class or middle class background based on his accent. That's more what I meant.

I agree, although people like @Notmyuser who got angry when I said that the Kardashians are not upper class no doubt would not. Accent, cultural capital, interests, and tastes have a LOT to do with class. It is NOT just about how much money you have, otherwise Michelle Mone would be upper class when she most definitely is not.

For example, to most people living in England, an articulate speech delivered in a Scottish or Welsh accent wouldn't give clues about social class

Except that upper middle and upper class people don't have regional accents. If you go to Fettes, for instance, you don't come out with a Scottish accent. So those people would be automatically middle class at best.

Conversely, some upper middle class people try desperately to disguise their non-accents by affecrting a sort of man of the people/estuary English/roadman accent.

Irish accents code as automatically WC for a significant number of English people, in my experience.

Haha yes @Janehasamane I am making it up and just musing on my own experiences and family history really. Of course sociologists and economists will have their own definitions but it's a nuanced subject and one I find interesting when life takes me outside of the middle class bubble I usually inhabit. Because of the catchment of my kids' state primary I'm in an area where all the children have exactly the same type of 3 bed house with a garden and therefore similar income families however the class differences are very clear and friendship groups almost entirely organise themselves in terms of accent and cultural outlook. You might say this is just people finding like minded friends but there is a very obvious divide in those with a mc accent who do particular types of extra curriculars and holidays and those who have a wc accent and do other types of things with their disposable cash and time. There is some overlap of course.

Whether class is somewhat about accent or not depends on where you live, whether you use a small or wide vocabulary and how articulate you are.

For example, to most people living in England, an articulate speech delivered in a Scottish or Welsh accent wouldn't give clues about social class but if the accent was Birmingham, Westcountry or Essex, many people would assume the speaker had a working class heritage.

However, a speaker with an upper class English accent could talk nonsense, peppered with ums and ers and still be perceived as upper class (or even aristocratic).

Do you think you’re maybe making up definitions of middle class so you can attribute yourself to that class? I mean you must know you’re just making stuff up , that it’s about being in a salaried professional role that requires further education. It’s not how you talk or what you buy.

if you’ve become working class there is no shame in this.

I'm middle class because when I do have disposable income I spend it on the opera and the theatre and not on package holidays

No, you spend your disposable income like that because that's your priority. Nothing at all to do with class in any objective sense of the word.

No one is discussing accents! I think it's all about accent and vocabulary and cultural outlook. Partly to do with types of job although not nothing to do with money or whether you have a horse.

I'm middle class because when I do have disposable income I spend it on the opera and the theatre and not on package holidays. I agree social mobility is generational- my grandparents on one side were working class- three generations in a 2 bed council house, however my grandmother explained to me they were what she called 'artisan' working class ie skilled trade. In their side of the family there were some v fast maths minds and wonderful artists which made them well placed for my parents' generation to take advantage of the social mobility that was possible for that generation.

It seems to me that mobility is gone now although there will always be people who by luck or grit do 'better' than their parents

Tins at the bottom is sensible @Ruminate2much, or you crush the fruit and veg!