to think 'posh' and 'rich' are two completely different things?

[Floogel]

being wealthy does not make you posh, IMO

Well of course they are different.

Who on earth thinks they aren't?

Obviously.

they are both vague and largely meaningless terms.

^^ I am posh but not rich.

I am neither, DW is posh but not rich...

They're very different.

Many posh are now quite poor - the nouveau pauvre. It's still very important to them to be posh though. Makes them feel superior .

Most rich people I know are not old money. But they are highly educated, highly intelligent and excellent at what they do...

word factory - describe these posh peole for me? I'm still trying to work out what makes a person "posh" in 2013?

I think it is largely in their head, how they self identify IYSWIM.

Either their parents or grandparents will have had money and been part of the upper middle class or upper class. Most liekly they will have attended public school and speak RP.

If they have failed to achieve much in their own right (despite privilege), they continue feeling superior by insisting that their accident of birth is more important than achievement and money.

the word 'posh' is believed to come from the accommodations on passenger ships traveling from England to India and back.

The preferred cabins for the trip to India were on the left, or port, side of the ship. The cabins on the right, or starboard, side were considered best for the trip back.

Passengers with these accommodations had their tickets stamped "POSH" for "port out, starboard home."

as this doesnt happen these days (afaik) nobody is posh anymore

I'm considerably richer & posher than yous.

I always feel quite sorry for the posh but poor.

The posh but poor tend, IME, to attach far too much importance to bygone rituals and values.

There are lots and lots of them in France... not helped by the fact that families with a particule feel obliged to have a lot of children.

The only really posh people I know live in a stately home. They are lovely, but live in a different world to me. I expect they are wealthy in terms of land but they arent the ones with the flash cars though.

So we've got quite a few equations with snobbery and it seems that you don't have to be rich to be posh.

Vinegar - I remember hearing that too, but was never sure if it was true. Great historical definition though.

In my huge dictionary with lots of explanations (I love words & semantics) this is an extract of the definition for posh:

" smart, stylish, top-class, expensive and therefore of the wealthy classes"

Does that sound right?

I'm old fashioned posh in a way that generally doesn't carry any weight nowadays- except on the very rare occasions when it does. It's just a club with stupid rules- and it's so much better to decide the club is stupid and you don't want to join it than to be excluded from it because you don't know the stupid rules. iYSWIM.

In England a lot of posh people are fairly rich. As old GBS said years ago
"an English person only has to open their mouth and you know their position in
society"

POSH spoken counts for more in England than it would in America.

/
Prem footballers are a special case and have no class historical connection.

PostBellums dictionary definition is closer to the truth than most of us would like to admit.

I am a little posher than my late mum and dad. But not as posh as Mariella Frostrop.

I agree with PicketyWick. I have a 'posh' accept so people think I am but I'm not. I just went to a school where we were all taught how to 'speak'.

It does have benefits though. I open my mouth, a few words come out and people run and jump without being asked! True.

I don't know why though because I don't dress poshly.

*accent. Sorry.

RuleBrit. It is the George Bernard Shaw theory you are benefitting from.

I used to do phoneins in Sheffield and got nicknamed "Posh" by broadcasters. And they are usually really posh

LOL, so we can add strangulated vowels to the list!

Bonsoir - same in the uk. The posh but poor disparage the new money (and their lack of adherence to class rules) etc in a way the posh but rich do not. The posh rich I know, love their smart cars and expensive clothes every bit as much as the new money. And they're not very interested in the rules IYSWIM. The posh but poor cling on to help them feel superior. Interesting really.

French posh-but-poor give their DCs ridiculous Christian names to signal their status as descendants of the aristocracy and ruling classes. Sixtine, Quitterie, Tancrède, Thadée...

... and they go to Church a lot and their children spend all their weekends at Scouts and Guides (very economical activities).

Bless 'em.