to be offended that, because I can string a sentence together and don't use txspk, people assume that I must be middle class?

[colditz]

There is nothing at all wrong with being middle class. It's a nice state of being.

But I get very upset when my friends, or posters her, say things like "Well, you are quite middle class, aren't you!"

I'm not. I'm quite intelligent, I'm quite well read, I'm quite moral and I'm getting on for quite old, but I'm not at ALL middle class.

It's as if to be working class (which I consider myself to be) you have to be ignorant and a bit dim, thoroughly uninterested in the world beyond the TV and actually, that's insulting. Some working class people are ignorant and a bit thick, but the same could be said for any class of people. Look at the Duke Of Edinborough!

I can be working class and quite bright, I can be working class and quite well read, I can be working class and able to vocally assert myself without cursing. Working class is not synonymous with "incapable of functioning properly outside of a greasy caff"

Ahh well...theres a thread on mumsnet where a someone mention no names colditzis quite upset by being called 'middle-class' instead of not giving an arse!!...take from that what you will

BTW colditz I just jesting so don't beat me

Colditz, frankly I think your friends must be odd. I'm quite intelligent, quite well read, quite moral and getting on for quite old too, and I've never been accused of being "quite middle class".

Mind you, I am quite middle class.

My friends call me "posh" when they wish to irritate me.

Is that how it works, then? We accuse people of being a rung or two higher up the ladder than they actually are in order to piss them off??

I think if you were middle class you would have put Edinburgh.

Duke Of Edinborough?was that intentional

most working class people are middle class. it's a ridiculous debate and this country really needs to get over idealising "working class."
Surely it's better to be aspirational than to cling to some bygone romanticism around working with your hands.

Does class still exist? I really don't get the whole system. I can understand terms like 'middle income' but when people say middle class I have no idea what they mean

She spelt how she said it...don't read too much into it I say...I did that the other day and read it back later and thought WTF??

I think anyone who gets a 'wage' is working class....

middleclass is not so much about aspiration and more about elevation...

Someone once said to me that being middle class was a question of how educated you are, which I found really offensive: As if you can't be educated and working class at the same time.
What class you are is dependent on your point of view, and to some extent your values.

To some posters who claim it is irrelevant:
I have several friends from other countries and they are completely baffled by our subtle and complex class system.

In this country it does have relevance in terms of who you identify with.

I always thought I was middle class until I asked my dad (an unreconstructed Marxist) who told me in no uncertain terms we were working class. And he could quote Shakespeare off the cuff.

Then I moved South and discovered he was right..

Someone tried to explain it to me as:

Working class: earns a wage
Middle class: earns a wage and pays a wage
Upper class: has no need to get involved with such things as wages.

Which was fine until I realised that an oxford graduate who goes on to become a brain surgeon and lives in a mansion in Surrey gets a wage and is therefore working class... I am so confused!

Does it have anything to do with the fact that some people have to constantly work to live, eg living day-to-day and that others earn enough to have a rainy day fund? Actually, that just puts people into earning brackets again, doesn't it.

She spelled it all in a slightly working class way so I think she saved herself. Wasn't there a split infinitive too?

How I agree with you.
I know plenty of intelligent and interesting working class people (I am related to many of them :-)...)
Being able to think for yourself is not a signifier of the middle classes... quite the opposite

All countries have a class system...the British just embrace it and in certain situations inculcate it into normal life..

for some countries class is about money...for others about lineag...some about even complexion*...or the amount of goats you have...

people love to seperate themselves and also elevate themselves..

V. odd comment Xenia. No-one actually cares about split infinitives nowadays - even academics. Perhaps it's still important for lawyers?

Having run Colditz's posts through my own impeccably MC editorial prism, plus a Word spell-check, I can assure you her spelling and grammar is perfectly correct (apart from the use of "them" instead of "themselves" but hey ho, it's quite late, it's Thursday, so I would hope some small quantity of Vino Collapso has been imbibed).

I think you can be a combination of classes. I am from a working class back ground and so speak with an accent. I did however attend a public fee paying school (on a scholarship) and attended redbrick universities for my undergrad and Masters. I currently have a professional job and I am married to a man from a middle class background also professional. Our standard of living is middle class however I feel I will always be working class.

Well thats the crux of the matter..are their true classes?..are we not interchangable? dependant upon experience,education and opinion?...I think in the past classes were well defined...now...not so much...

looks@ their..

There are lots of factors that cause people to identify someone as one class or another and as others say people can move class or have characteristics of one which makes people assume one class or the other.

(Mrs F there are lots. Sentence starting with But. A whole load of sentences with commas at the end not full stops, the Edin etc spelling. It does give an impression went to state school etc.)

YABU for getting so irate about what you believe to be is your perceived class. I speak beautifully and don't give a flying fuck what people think my class is.

Agree with AlpinePony.

colditz why do you consider yourself working class. I mean, on what grounds?

This is not WTF do you think you're on about, but a desire for information.

As a context, my own background is unrespectable working class, but to claim that as my current class status would be nonsense, though I am always aware of the differences I perceive between myself and those who were raised in the middle classes.

colditz: yanbu. I know exactly where you're coming from and could, in some ways, have written your OP (except for the old bit obviously )

It also annoys me when people assume that I am unintelligent, immoral and totally unable to string a sentence together because I am working class.

Being intelligent and well read is not a middle/upper class preserve (although the way this government's going it will be in the future)

harpsichord that's an unforgiveable bit of inverted snobbery you just indulged in there. And a bit of warped logic too.