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"

There's a failure of understanding here which it is becoming embarrassing to engage with.

This is about stereotypes. The stereotype about the middle classesbeing better spoken and better educated has a historical basis. It is no mystery. All stereotypes are made up of fact a prejudice. It doesn't mean everyone believes every person in a group is a certain way. But this is no less surprised than the coffee nosed nepotist stereotype.

Whether these stereotypes have any traction now is different and not that interesting to me.

Ho ho my phonehadfun there.. hope you can understandanyway

Appletrees I understand what you are saying however I personally do not agree. I dont think you can dismiss the whole notion of a class system as 'stereotyping' and then pretend it does not exist. Doing that is not helpful if we do wish to open up opportunities for people. It is necessary to understand the barriers that exist such as poverty traps etc so they can be overcome and some level of social mobility and egalitarian society obtained.

Wherever did you get the idea that the class system doesn't exist.

On yr last point, education is central to social mobility. By which people mean money, really.

Or even, of course, that I think it doesn't exist.

Oh it certainly exists its just seemingly more fluid these days..if it didnt exist you wouldnt be living under a Tory government as we speak!

Appletree

If you think I can keep up with the white heat of your intellect then I am happy to "engage" with you.

However, when you say that "the stereotype about the middle classesbeing better spoken and better educated has a historical basis" you seem to be saying that it is fact that they were better educated.

Now, what I am quibbling with is not the historical nature of this sterotype but with your fundamental understanding of what "education" is.

If you look at the periods when class distinctions were at their most rigid then the "education" provided by schools and universites was of a parlous nature. It was activity by individuals at Balliol, Oxford and at Rugby school that gave any educational cachet at all to the universities and public schools - prior to that, they were, essentially, finishing schools and social networking clubs. What one "studied" there did not matter becuase that wasn't the point of attending - it was a social badge and a way of making contacts (and of boys and young men fucking prostitutes and each other a long way from home so that there was no embarrassing comeback.)

In other words, these establishments were primarily for the propagation of class and wealth rather than of education (ironically, the only people actually getting educated there were the poor who were there on scholarships.)

All that the "stereotype" really proves is that money begets money and that, because these same people have also attended prestigious educational establishments (where they may or may not have learnt something useful) society yokes together success, wealth and educational achievement almost unthinkingly.

It follows that to lack one of these three is potentially to lack all, and a vicious circle is formed. This is the basis of the stereotype that the OP highlights - anyone who speaks properly and has read a book must be middle class because we all know that the working class are imbeciles. How do we know it? They must be imbeciles, or else why are they poor?

Are you saying that working class people historically had a better education than students at oxford?

nope only lower middle class people worry about being seen as middle class!

The harder you true the lower you look!!

I think my point is being missed.

NOTHING about me says middle class, lower middle class, nearly middle class, vaguely middle class, wannabe middle class.... except, it seems, the words that come out of my brain via my mouth or my fingers.

I don't aspire to be middle class. I aspire to be richer and cleverer than I am already but i DON'T associate that with being middle class.

Currently, I have a working class occupation, live in a working class area and have a basic level of formal education.

So where is the confusion coming from? On what basis are people (yes, the ever vegaue 'they') deciding that I am not working class?

No - I am saying that, historically, education beyond a purely functional level made no difference at all as one's horizons were governed almost exclusively by who one associated with and how much money one's family brought in. This is why it didn't matter that Oxford provided education only nominally for huge periods of its history (it is also, incidentally, a major contributory factor to the long tradition of the subject of study's relevance to life as being strictly secondary, why vocational subjects apart from medicine are not really taught at such universities and why arts had a higher social value at Oxford well into the 20th century and arguably to this day.)

Again - genuine "education", beyond the three "R"s, was literally useless to the huge majority of the population until really quite recently. The true value of "education" in the sense of attending high school and then university was that it marked you out as someone well off (even in free scghool, the implication is that your family can spare you as a wage earner) and put you in touch with other well off people who might, one way or another, confirm your status as someone well off and help you to become more well off.

Just to add, the Tory government are quite happy to keep people as 'factory fodder'. It does not make good economical sense to have people educated beyond what they need to do their job...hence why some schools will always be significantly better than others. It is economics pure and simple.

wutker I didn't make any mention of regional accents - read the post again! I was referring to commonly used grammatical errors, such as 'I done' and 'we was'.

The reason I mentioned region, is because these vary across the country. In the north a common grammatical mistake would be 'I were in bed' whereas a southerner wouldn't say that.

Catholic Your WC who 'at least had the excuse that they went to a school with low levels of attainment'

I never understand this logic to be honest. The level of attainment at any school is set by the pupils in it. It's like blaming your scales for the fact you are too fat.

Colditz I don't know about rl, but on which threads have posters said you dear are middle class?

Maybe we can help decipher it....

But as you say, they can be features of regional accents, I don't like the inference that it makes people sound unintelligent. It's all subjective perception anyway, posh accents are often referred to as 'braying', which isn't exactly complimentary either.

"I was referring to commonly used grammatical errors, such as 'I done' and 'we was'."

They're not errors - they're part of regional dialects. They might be socially undesirable, but they're not mistakes per se.

Also there are loads of posters who write properly, and most don't use text speak. And say they are working class.

Loads.

I think if people have the impression that all wc people use bad language etc then they have pretty poor levels of perception.

Colditz, why do you care? You know who you are as long as your happy and healthy why does any of this matter? If its your friends saying your middle class and u don't like the term and get offended then don't be friends with these people.

X

if i can't text properly, does that make me underclass?

i dont giev a fuck what you are
whty on EARTH would you be offended by such a vage comment

life

She cares because it's insulting & patronising to wc people. Do positive characteristics belong only to mc and above?

BettyMoody
'life'

um get one Betty if you 'don't give a fuck'?

I care because it's when I show my better attributes that I am assumed to be middle class. As if intelligent and eloquent is something working class people cannot be!

betty you smell of fish