to think that MN is descending into class war?

[Hullygully]

Today I have read a comment that someone's potential home looks like "a council house on a sink estate," seen a debate about "chav fashion," vile comments about "Poor Kids" etc and seen numerous threads over the past few days where people fight to gang up together against the infesting lower orders with their bad grammar, poor articulation, txt spk and poor spelling.

WTF people?

It is snobbery. Nothing else.

Gis an eg, irksome?

What's that quote about everytime an Englishman opens his mouth he makes some other Englishman despise him?

You've got snooty tossers on every level of society, I'm afraid MN's just a cross section ... ( very cross, sometimes )

I'm off to have a look at this house thread and upset myself ...

Hear hear/Here here (never sure which), Lenin. Just this morning my poncy ds was worried about walking to school with his musical instument in a hard case in case people laughed at him. Cue very stern lecture about not allowing others to dictate your life and choices, ending with an exhortation to punch them in the face if necessary.

Perhaps I went too far.

Well, hully oh, just off the top of my head....

Suppose one has a fundamental issue with private schools. This is almost invariably attributed to inverse snobbery, but I venture suggest it may be more complex than that.

I just don't think inverse snobbery is that much of a problem on here. Or anywhere, come to that.

I hadn't noticed that, but that might be because I am a raging hypocrite who would abolish them all in a heartbeat yet has used them in the past...

*celia I think it is foolishly presumptious to assume you know best for the poor...which in a way is snobbery. I am middle class and educated therefore I must know what it is the poor and uneducated want.

I'm not saying you shouldn't challenge right wing views...you should...but not by belittleing the person who holds them or pulling class or education rank.

If someone says that they think many mickey mouse degrees are a waste of tax payers money...you don't challenge that by ridiculing that person's (lack of) education. Particularly if you've set yourself up as some sort of defender of the poor and uneducated.*

wordfactory, I absolutely agree with you about not belittling peoples' spelling and grammar. In fact, I said so in my previous reply to you . I'm not sure I agree that middle class people are being presumptuous if they disagree with right wing views though. Issues around immigration/Europe/benefits etc affect all of us, not just the poor and/or uneducated and we are all entitled to express our opinions on them. I don't agree at all that people who are middle class and who disagree with right wing politics are all doing it out of some paternalistic desire to tell the working class what's good for them. Just as no one working class person can claim to speak for the entire working class, as if they were some sort of herd animal with one opinion between the lot of them.

Agreed Hully. I felt very when I read the thread about a house somebody was thinking of buying - it was their first house and they said they'd been saving hard for a long time. Some of the responses were horrible and probably made the OP feel a bit shit.

Sometimes when I post I use text-speak, type very quickly and don't spell check (I'm often at work so have to be quick and sneaky!). If I make a mistake I always get slated for it. It doesn't upset me but does make me think there is a nasty little sector of MNers out there just looking for a snipe....

Whilst I'd generally agree with you Hully, I feel I have to put a point across re being a hoity-toity spelling and grammar snob (which is what some people on here would probably class me as).

My issue with people who regularly use terms such as 'hugz' and 'gawjuss' to communicate with the world at large is that often they can spell perfectly well and are CHOOSING to write in this way. I object to it not only because I find it grim and cringey, but because it's likely to be picked up and used by children and teens who may still be in dire need of honing their spelling and grammar skills. Which they and the country's economy will be NEEDING in the future.

It's insidious, especially as it's often couched in the language of love - 'luvz my lil bubz and hubby' etc.

And yes, I realise this makes me sound crusty and probably a bit weird. So judge me.

I agree House, I am frequently exhorting people to say fed up WITH, bored WITH etc, but as I said earlier the importance of spelling, grammar and txt spk etc can all be said with love and manners, it's using them as an excuse for sneering that's repellant.

Agree Hully, when I'm expressing my opinions I don't think I'm usually rude or abusive. I might draw the line at expressing them with luurve though

repellent

Thank you claig. I am assuming there was love as you typed.

there was more than love, there was luuurve

In "real life" you get some people who are more tolerant than others. As a committed social observer (chuckle, read "nosy cow"), some people are more comfortable haning around like minded people, others are challenged by a wider variety of friends. It is why you get talk of playground cliques, a clique is really just a group of very similar people in my experience - easy to penetrate if you are likeminded, and alien and cliquey if not. On mumsnet you get a pack mentality on some threds, the people I most respect are those who stand up and disagree (like Hullygully did - yay for hullygully!).

I think what frustrates me on mumsnet, is that people are so rude about one another, so intolerant and judgemental. Maybe it is the way people type, maybe being a little more anonymous prevents them from recognising there is a real person on the end, but you cn put your point across without being so personal. I do think there is a bit of a desire by some people to be seen as witty and good at put dwns and it often goes too far.

I don't particularly enjoy reading posts full of grammatical and spelling errors and respect it more if people add in the odd paragraph but it does not mean I would disregard somebody's opinion because they used there insted of their. It is bordering on bullying the way some people abuse certain posters but it says much more about those who do the nitpicking, I'm not a fan of anyone who gets pleasure out of treating another person like something stuck to their shoe.

In the post about houses I was actually too angry to read more than a page or so. I could not believe that somebody had worked hard to get to the point of buying their own home (no mean feat) and was then receiving comments of it looking like a council house (so?) or the bathroom being too small (wtf? if any room is going to be small it should be the bathroom surely? you only wash and poo in there, who needs a huge space?). I am certain most people if told they could buy any house they wanted would end up wth something palatial, but this is the real world and she had found a decent house and should be proud of it.

The other thing is that so much misinformed "daily mail"esque crap is spouted without evidence. "Immigrants take our jobs", "They get better services despite not speaking our language", "Poor people just mismanage their money", "All benefit recipients have flat screen tvs" etc etc.

Makes me bang my head in frustration but I still read and have to say, it's all quite fun!

Good post, feckwit, apart from "daily mail"esque crap".
That was unnecessary, inaccurate and infactual. That was what they call a poxymoron.

I'm not bothered by txt spk, spelling:grammar ( speed read so rarely notice )
It's the hypocrites I can't stand - the plastic pedants whose posts read like an extract from a Noel coward play ( trying sooooo hard ) only to be found calling someone a 'fucking twat' 10 minutes later - really really really odd.

Justine can't help the way she writes

True

We need more lurvee.

It is just always about insecurity. Why are we all so insecure? Why do we sneer at everyone who choses differently from us.

I'll tell you what fucks me off, that education has become about your cv and fuck all to do with learning.

I had an awful education. I had an illiterate mother who left school at 11 and who had only attended before that when she had seen to her duties as effectively mother to her 3 brothers and fucking made to her wanker of a father.

But my father was incredibly lucky and had a good education from the brethren fathers and, although poor, was taught Latin and English literature and was taught to think and explore and challenge.
Going home to him every night, arguing about books and politics saved me from being on Jeremy Kyle. Not everyone is so lucky.

But now we educate children simply to create taxpayers. And we have made learning a trade the thick option which is just fucking ridiculous. So we produce non academic teenagers who are per suing a degree which will fail to secure them a career which they probably won't even enjoy.

Makes me mad

The nonce thread which was started last night looks like it might desend into whats being described on here.

The original topic is posted all wrong and the op has been abusive.

It may serve as an example if anyone hasnt seen it happeneing

I wonder if I have really good bullshit detectors as I hardly ever click on threads such as those mentioned in this thread. Of this class thing, I know not. I certainly do find MN a bitchy place (and certainly not all posters are friendly) and the posters on this thread falling over themselves to feel the love , well - we all have two sides I guess. A leetle sniff of hypocrisy is wafting across my laptop screen.

Now then, I must go and check what the maid is up to in the East Wing