What do you consider posh?

[Fearlesssloth]

Is posh subjective/relative do you think or is there a universally agreed upon definition? I mean I guess everyone would say the royal family is posh right?! A work acquaintance called me posh today when I told her the street I live on and it made me think god if she thinks I’m posh where does she live?! Quite amusing as I’ve never been called posh before and the street I live on is mainly small 3-bed semis, mix of council and privately owned but not what I’d call posh, just not a council estate

Guaranteed all the people on that show that were labelled posh were very well-spoken though. That’d be what the rest of them labelling them posh were actually picking up on, not what their house looked like. If a woman with a strong Geordie accent had a fancy looking statue in her house she wouldn’t be labelled as posh

In the 80s , MIL was asked where she lived by a fellow dinner party guest. When she replied St John’s Wood, the dinner party guest mused, ‘oh yes, I heard there are now people living north of The Park.’

I think she might have been a bit posh (or as she would undoubtedly have said, ‘smart.’)

@Fearlesssloth
Guaranteed all the people on that show that were labelled posh were very well-spoken though.

They really weren't.
The majority have extremely obvious put-on voices and usually telegraph their desire to be thought smart by saying things like: "May friends all think Ay'm posh and Ay'm not! Well, maybe a bit, dahling <giggle>". Or they insist all beef must be wagyu, ask if people have made their own filo pastry and say they don't eat any seafood except oysters... Basically, whatever they think sounds "posh" and knowledgeable about food.

It's my regular Sunday viewing while I'm preparing the evening meal (supper/dinner/tea - take your pick 😄) so I've seen a lot of it.

Eta And, as I mentioned upthread, they often have appalling manners and will ostentatiously wipe their cutlery and/or glasses with their napkins - "Ay have such high standards of cleanliness".

Nope. I've taken to buying dinner for friday night in the v expensive farm shop instead of Waitrose.

I'm so far from posh with my Stockport comprehensive school education.

Because people don’t want to come across as if they care?

Pointing out someone is posh is also highlights the other person isn’t . And also also don’t meet any posh people,as they felt the need to point it out.

Not if posh as seen as a bit of an insult, which it is imo. I connect it with silver spoon, privileged, don’t know what hard work is, silly, out of touch. I don’t think most people actually want to be thought of as posh!

@Fearlesssloth David and Victoria do 😂

The only person who has ever called me posh certainly intended it as an insult. But as he is a smallscale drug dealer with a greasy mullet, neck tattoos and a lengthy criminal record, I’m not exactly crying into my tea about it.

I don’t think most people actually want to be thought of as posh!

Mmm. I disagree.

I was nicknamed 'posh spice' by one of my teachers in college because I always made an effort to dress well and didn't speak with the accent typical of where i'm from. It was hilarious though, because I grew up in a very deprived area and household, lol.

Posh is different to everyone. You could be perceived as posh by one person and as 'poor' by the next. Posh to me is people who live in huge houses, drive expensive cars, have more money than sense of course, but MUST also be very affluent in terms of education, knowledge, values, etc. I tend to bunch 'posh' people with the kind of folk that would say things like "No darling, do not choose THAT university to attend, it is simply subordinate to our familial reputation...". The opposite would be "ee ar dont be seh daft, ya not goin uni we cant afford it".

A lot of people think I'm posh, including my dearly beloved stepdaughter (and I think my husband, although he would never say so).

I'm not, I just have standards (like table manners), I am educated, I don't swear and I speak with an RP accent.

If a person uses the word "posh", they are not posh.

You could be perceived as posh by one person and as 'poor' by the next.

"Posh" and "poor" aren't opposites.

I tend to bunch 'posh' people with the kind of folk that would say things like "No darling, do not choose THAT university to attend, it is simply subordinate to our familial reputation...

If only you'd stuck a "dontcha know" on the end of that it would have been a perfect parody of what people who've never met a "posh" person imagine that's how they sound.

Maybe 20 years ago I had parents in the shop I worked in who didn’t want their children going to a particular brownie unit and mixing with the riff raff. The riff raff was doctors, lawyers etc as a flat now with two bedrooms would cost you approaching £500,000. The difference was area the so riff raff bought in a nicer area and sent their children to the local state school where as the other parents bought slightly outside the desired area so could afford to buy a house and send their children to private school.

Absolutely not. Lower middle is definitely above working class..... only just, but the lower middles would be mortified to be considered working class. They're what used to be called "genteel".
Things like taking shoes off at the front door is a lower middle thing to do - neither working nor upper classes would ever consider it.

Most people on MN think they are posh because they have eaten an avocado.

Taking shoes off at door is an Asian / ethnic thing.

God, not this again.

The most amusing thing about these "posh" threads?

All the posters who are convinced they know what "the real posh people" are like, as if there's really any such thing. 😆

Ha, same!

It would if he was a footballer who played for Peterborough

Oh gosh, those clown necklaces from Argos! They were a class of their own, the en vogue necklace before that was a holographic owl I think?

Lol. So no one in any other culture does this? Just cos it’s etiquette in Asia doesn’t mean people in other cultures don’t do it, or if they do do it they are somehow adopting a different cultural practice! Some people just don’t want mud dragged through their house.

Honestly some people on MN could argue with a dead frog 🤣

We must have grown up in the same place.

called nerd, swot, and regularly asked if ‘I’d swallowed a fucking dictionary’ because I might use manners!

One thing 'posh' people never do is to refer to a dinner jacket as a 'dinner suit'!!