To think 'chav' is not an okay thing to call people?

It's a horrible, judgy word.

It's absolutely rife on the Baby Names board. I call it out or report it when I see it, but it's like trying to swim against the tide.

Chavs by the nature of being a chav wouldn’t care if they’re called it. If you care you most likely are not a chav.

I definitely don't think it applies to working class people and where I come from it never did!
It was always used to describe the people most likely to end up on Jeremy Kyle....ie long time benefits claimants that had never worked a day since leaving school but bought relatively expensive sports wear out of whichever catalogue would still give them credit.
I can see a few people like that around me now, acres of white flabby flesh on display (because the sun has been out for 24 hours) sat in their front garden with a can of Stella and a fag. The wife/girlfriend is at least a size 20 and has an almost see through black vest top on with matching cycling shorts and white/grey underwear(I can see every curve...) Both kids are obviously playing out front on the pavement very loudly despite having a rather large back garden that is infinitely safer than the road to play in. Everyone knows/sees people like this regularly and it was a pain typing out the description, if I had just said 'chav' most people would have been able to describe the above as it is a well known word. It is only offensive if it applies to you, and if it does perhaps do something about it!

Yep 🤷‍♀️

Yes, tbh I think smoking anything is chavvy and for medicinal purposes you’d take it a different way because smoke isn’t good for your lungs.

I’m far from being a millionaire but I find the idea of someone thinking I’m a chav quite funny 😁 I actually worry about people thinking I’m a twat because my accent is too posh!

I wonder how many of the people are fine with the word "chav" are fine with being called a "Karen". Not many I'd wager, since there have been numerous threads (rightly) against the whole Karen thing. What's the difference? Funny how when it's aimed at you you don't like it.

Where in the book does it say chav is interchangeable with working class? I read it's a representation - one of many - and links that to demonisation?

I expect that they do. Of course. Anyone can sneer at difference - especially if they feel they’re being sneered at. The thing that makes chav objectionable to me though, is when it’s used by , in general terms, relatively more advantaged people to convey negative judgements about relatively less advantaged people.

It sounds less judgmental when people claim it is a term which describes behaviour, but I don't think that's at all true of most of its usage. For many people, someone can be a chav just because of what they look like and wear.

You clearly don't live in the north west

Yes, I clarified in the post just before yours. People have slightly different definitions of 'chav', but they are all undoubtedly bound up with class, even if what people describe as 'chav' isn't a discrete class of its own.

It's by British writer Owen Jones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavs:_The_Demonization_of_the_Working_Class

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class is a non-fiction work by the British writer and political commentator Owen Jones, first published in 2011.[2][3] It discusses stereotypes of sections of the British working class (and the working class as a whole) and use of the pejorative term chav. The book received attention in domestic and international media, including selection by critic Dwight Garner of The New York Times as one of his top 10 non-fiction books of 2011 in the paper's Holiday Gift Guide and being long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award.[4][5][6][7][8]
The book explores the political and economic context for the alienation of working-class Britain. It references the impact of British government policy from the Thatcher era onwards and how it has been used as a political weapon to disenfranchise the working class, dismantle societal structures designed to support the working class – such as unions – and pit working class communities against each other.[citation needed]
It was published in Dutch in 2013, translated by Charles Braam.[9]

It isn't interchangeable.
2 very different classes

People only really say chav if someone is behaving like one. I use the term and I was brought up on a council estate. It’s just replaced the word ‘common’ really.

Personally don’t use the word but I don’t get worked up about it but have noticed mumsnet have a particular obsession with defining rudeness and controlling language.

Same here!! My dad was a builder and had many a van in his time.

I would and do! Smoking weed is chavvy regardless who does it.

What about an older person who smokes for medicinal purposes? Chavs?

@pattypan they look down on people with less money than them.

Why do they see themselves as a “cut above”? What attributes do they have that they think elevates them?

How would you describe something or someone cheap and tasteless looking, rude, uncouth, antisocial, uneducated and lacking aspiration? Is there an alternative word to use for such things?

At one time "underclass" was used, but for obvious reasons that fell out of favour too

However none of the descriptors above refer to anything admirable, so probably there isn't a word to use that'll avoid offence to those who'd rather they weren't mentioned at all

I think chav is a useful shorthand term which is not aimed specifically at a group defined by wealth, sex, race etc ie things which the person themself has no control over.
The chaviest family I know are very rich and think themselves a cut above everybody else but their behaviour is the epitome of what we generally mean by the word chav.
I think judging people’s behaviour is acceptable in this instance.
I also agree with the pp who said most of those virtue signalling would run a mile from chavvy neighbours or going to a holiday destination known as chavvy.

Your neighbours would label me a chav? Why? Because I think they’re chavs?

@chav1 I already own that book and like I said upthread I don't consider 'chav' to be an interchangeable term with 'working class'.

I'd use the word chav, I'd use the word toff, I'd say scally, I'd say scrotes etc - it's just a descriptor!

Won't click on a link that spells demonisation with a z
We are not American
And if the Burberry cap fits...

anyone with a work van?! 😆😆