To think the people who call people common

[ThisIsNotHoneyDragon]

Without their tongue in their cheek, and instead as a judgement of a persons appearance, behaviour or character, and genuinely mean it, are probably not very pleasant people themselves?

It's the snotty people that call others common

YANBU. The parents at my DD's private school are frightfully common. I'd send them to Harrow but they're girls.

Waiting.....

For.......

The backlash

absolutely. calling people common and meaning it is terrible. i do it all the time.

calling people 'common' is a device used by what used to be the respectable working class to separate themselves from what under the previous government were termed 'subculture' people - the unwaged and feckless - 'benefit scroungers' might come into that category.

traditionally, if you are not common, you are at least respectable, even if you are not rich. you might work in a mill but you go to church and study in the evenings. your children will go to offices and your grandchildren into professions. your strong principles, decent values and hard work will bring about positive change for your family. this system functioned effectively for many families from the point where industrialisation was established until recently.

its easy to mock, despise or decry people who want to be different from the worst in society, particularly now the whole of society has accepted 'common' as the way to be, but dutiful, hardworking, respectable people are worthy of admiration.

and the really posh don't call people common. but the can still take a pop. watch out for 'where did you go to school?'...

the = they

Is common like the n word? It's ok to use it if you're common, but no one else can say it.

KellyElly It is not the same as calling posh people posh. There is a power difference for a start, and there's not the same judgement inherent in it.

I hate "common" and more than that I hate "chav".

lovebunny but they'd only ask that of someone who was the same class as them. They always know.

Please watch this 1 1/2 minutes, and anyone helpful comment would be kindly appreciated

NCForNow they do. younger ones sort each other that way, though.

yellowraincoat I don't agree at all. I think there's a lot of posh bashing these days - people being called posh twats etc and laughed at because of their plummy accents. It's all labelling at the end of the day and making assumptions about peoples education, upbringing, financial status and life style choices through the way they talk and act.

I'm a lovely person but I still sneer and mutter "ooh she's common as much" when Katie Price is on tv hoik at will, I can take it

much? muck I mean MUCK!

Posh people are hilarious to watch and listen to. Ya?

KellyElly yes, but it doesn't really seem to HARM the posh people too much does it? They still have all the positions of power and influence. They still have all the money in this country.

You can't, Benedict Cumberbatch-style, make a thing of your poshness and then whinge that people call you posh.

yellowraincoat not every position of power and influence is held by the 'posh', there are many people not born to money and status who work their way up and become sucessful business leaders or high achievers in their chosed fields. Same as there are a large proportion of those who went to public school and don't work their way up the career ladder and end up living a condiderably different life than their parents or the life they were born too. This is what I mean about labelling - either way it's wrong and just becomes a them and us culture. The class system - posh/common etc is all irrelevant to me. I just take people as I find them regardless of where they grew up, what job they have, what school they went to etc.

KellyElly No, not every position. Enough of them that I'm never going to be that bothered when someone posh-bashes compared to when someone chav-bashes.

If you've had every advantage in life handed to you on a plate and you then complain that someone said a nasty thing about you and you can't just laugh it off, I apologise if I'm not starting up a charitable campaign to help the oppressed posh of the world.

My MIL is always talking about people/things being 'common' or 'posh' she's a right rough'un

I grew up watching Elsie Tanner and Hilda Ogden, call Rita and Bet Lynch 'Common', on Corry, i never realy saw it as an insult, because it looked so much fun being 'common'.

If you take it as having conotations with the working class and women who are happy to go into pubs and eat fish and chips out of the paper, i'm happy to be called it.

The rest who use it in other ways, i couldn't care about and would laugh at someone who used that term, today, tbh, there are more effective ways to describe behaiviour.

If someone said that i would take them a snot being very articulate or educated.

KellyElly Look at the present government, the poshest since the 30's. The 'posh' are doing a-ok!

And 'posh' as an insult is nowhere near the same as saying 'chav'. Posh has positive associations for a lot of people. Can you imagine Chav Spice?

I was told recently that I was 'too posh' for a job I had applied for... I didnt want the job anyway, so I didnt care. But perhaps I only didnt care because I am actually posh and therefore dont feel insulted by the word?

Common to me is actually another word for antisocial - so women in pubs, fish and chips from newspapers as PP mentioned above - absolutely fine; spitting in the street or swearing (badly and gratuitously) in front of older people/young children - that's common.

squoosh I agree on the word chav. That's on a par now with other really offensive insults.

They actually gave you that as a reason, being too posh? That's ridiculous! What was the job?

I hate all words that have some kind of negative connotations with class - I hate the words common, chav and posh. They are all horrible to me and all need to be banned.

Anyone that thinks it is only snotty people that call others names are so mistaken. I have heard loads of inverse snobbery and it is never a compliment (and it is not always justified either).

squoosh - youth support worker; was only 3 hours a week, so useless anyway financially; but at the interview I realised why would I want to be out with other people's spotty teens when I could be at home with my lovely ones?!!

maryz ditto, I have also been the victim of inverse snobbery; however because I have typical upper class arrogance I am able to rise above it. (waits for flaming for that remark).