Being called Posh… when we’re not…

[Poshornot]

Feeling a bit offended really - have been called posh on a few occasions. But we aren’t posh or come from posh backgrounds. We live in a terraced in an average town with average-below average schools and earn an average income.

We work hard to pay for nice things but now i feel a bit of an outsider in our own community. I don’t want people thinking we’re posh / don’t fit in with them just because we have a 5 year old car not an ‘old banger’ or because we keep our house / garden well kept :/

anyone else experienced this?

In Liverpool, anyone with a southern accent is considered posh. 😁

Humblebrag

I remember being called posh at school and I did feel like an outsider because of it. Was hard to know what to say back so just another thing that made me retreat more in to myself. Definitely wasn't posh, just pronounced my Ts when I said water....

Can see why you're offended - must be awful!

So you're not posh and you also don't have a sense of humour?

One of my best friends is from Essex and I'm from the opposite end of England. She considers me posh for, amongst many things, preferring brown bread and having savings. It's all very lighthearted.

Op, I'm sure your neighbours and friends are only teasing you as a jokey way to lightly flatter you without being weird about it.

I got called posh all the time because of my accent / mannerisms at school or when I first started work. Funnily enough they didn't like being called common back! 😂

It is always used as an insult and to mean you are not one of us

Those who consider you posh must have never actually met any posh folks. Just laugh it off.

It's all relative. I got called posh the other day and we're in a (privately rented) council house-type house on a council estate, 8 year old car on finance and a salary topped up with universal credit.

The reason I'm posh? We eat asparagus 😐

I tried to explain that I don't BUY the asparagus, I grow it myself, but that apparently makes me even posher so I dunno, might as well buy a seasalt dress and embrace it.

I am partially deaf and had speech therapy as a child from an old lady who I thought was a witch (I assume she wasnt) who had a posh accent, I therefore developed a posher accent than my friends. Didnt really bother me if people called me posh because I am who I am and other people opinions aren't really relevant. I think you need to identify why it bothers you so much.

In bits of Greater Manchester too . I have the kind of estuary accent that most MNers try to drum out of their children, and which betrays my council estate roots. But apparently just the long "a" (grahse, bahth) marks me as posh in some people's eyes.

@Sunbeam18 not at all - what am I bragging about?

@TomatoSandwiches sorry, did i miss the joke?

thanks all for your comments…

@Hellocatshome It bothers me because up until recently we have got on wonderfully with our neighbours/school parents etc. But because we are going on a summer holiday to Spain (mentioned in conversation about school holidays), I was basically mocked and called posh….. on separate occasions by the same people. It’s made me very aware of what i say to people and worry how i come across. Almost makes me feel self conscious!

Meh, I’ve been called worse

I grew up in an ex-mining town in Derbyshire, and I’m the opposite of posh. That didn’t stop the locals calling me posh when I worked in Stoke. Compared to the Potteries, everywhere else is posh though. 😉

Are you sure you are not being overly sensitive to banter? We were calling a colleague at work for being posh because she was going to buy her bbq meat from Marks & Sparks.

I've been called posh before because of my accent, but just like anyone else, I can't help the way I speak. I agree with the person upthread that it's always used as an insult. I think some people feel threatened by things that they cannot directly relate to.

I get called posh all the time because I live in the Black Country and speak with a Home Counties accent and pronounce words correctly - a legacy of my grandmother constantly correcting me when I dropped my H’s and T’s as a child ,which is something I’m thankful for now and do with my own children!

If I’m honest I think speaking like I do has opened doors I’d never have had access to other wise as it makes me sound much cleverer than I am 😂.

Take it as a compliment 😊

I was called posh too OP and someone at college (I was a mature student) even started this weird rumour that I had a butler LMFAO. No idea where the fck that came from as I came from very humble working class beginnings and was sharing a student house with 5 other broke students at the time. The only thing I can think is that I have a southern accent-very much like Liz Hurley's voice.

The way I dealt with it was to laugh it off. I used to say "of course I have a butler- doesnt everyone?- his name is Dave and he packed quails eggs in my sandwich lunch box this morning" and joked along with them. I just thought- fine, if you want posh so much, you'll get it! I think getting sensitive about it or upset only makes it seem like maybe you are posh and are sensitive about it, like its this big thing. Once I started joking about it in a self depreciating way, the posh jibes immediately stopped. I do wonder if it was thinly veiled bitchiness but as soon as they saw it didnt bother me because I joked along with it, it did stop.

But because we are going on a summer holiday to Spain (mentioned in conversation about school holidays), I was basically mocked and called posh…..

Surely this is a joke!

I used to get called posh at my old workplace...not in a nice way...so when someone said it it said ' well I suppose I am compared to you' in a very cheery happy way!

Yes I moved to the NW and my colleagues all took the mick out me sounding posh, given they were all home owners in their early 20s while I was in my 30s still renting I thought it was a bit odd!

Ignore. The type of person who says this to a random neighbour is a complete moron.

You got called posh because you're going to Spain? Please tell me you're going to Benidorm

We moved from down south to up north when I was about 8. At school I was called posh because I pronounced things differently ie, long a’s etc. it used to really piss me off, the kids saying it lived in huge privately owned houses, we moved from a one bed flat in a high rise block to a terraced tiny house up here that we rented. I’m 42 and I’ve been abroad once in my whole life, don’t have a lot at all - and I still get called posh just because I don’t have a northern accent 🙄