...to object to the use of the word 'chav'?

[MariaFormosa]

I wouldn't refer to any other group of people by a derogatory/contemptuous name, so why is this so widely accepted? Isn't it just as prejudiced as some well-known racist terms which, thank god, are unacceptable in everyday conversation? It's really starting to get to me when I hear people (even some pretty good friends) talk about "chavs" or something being chavvy - it makes me cringe ... yet I've not been quite brave enough to challenge/question it. Just read a post where someone referred to someone as being "a bit chavvy" .. AIBU to think it's being contemptuous? What does it really mean?

YANBU. Not at all. And the fact that it is more to do with taste than anything else doesn't make it better in my view. So some people have more money than taste, so what?
Having good taste is not a virtue, it says nothing positive about you. In the same way, having bad taste and thinking Mariah Carey is a true artist doesn't actually say anything about you as a person.

i dont have a problem with its use any more than i have a problem with calling a punk a punk or a goth a goth.

You don't see any goth/punk threads/comments on the baby names board , so its not the same really is it?

I've lost count of the it's chavvy comments on there.

at goth name threads.

Morticia is it to goth?

It means council house and violent.
My dh grew up on a council estate and is the least violent person I no.

Thug, waster, benefit cheat, much more descriptive.

It does NOT mean 'council house and violent'. Why would anyone invent an acronym for a phrase that makes no sense? Even the more coherent version sometimes put forward, 'council housed and violent', is transparently a 'backronym' coined by people who make negative assumptions about council-house dwellers. The Wikipedia entry on chav is actually pretty useful.

It seems the Telegrah agrees with you here

And nobodies really sure where it came from but pretty much everyone agrees that Council Housed and Violent was assigned to it after it became common usage.

Oh god. Not this again. You sound out of touch. You are out of touch.

It's not awful, nasty, sneering or anything like that. They call themselves chavs and no, it doesn't have anything to do with demonising the w/c. The first girl on the street to go to uni doesn't carry the label of "chav" to halls. My understanding of the word is, besides just being able to recognise them in the street- people who are incredibly narrow minded, people who don't care about much of anything, people who always want more.