to wonder if peoples definition of Chav/Chavvy varies greatly

[GirlOutNumbered]

This is a bit of a post about a post. Some one said that a girl in a barbour jacket would be chavvy. I have never, ever seen a Chav in a barbour jacket.

A chav down here is someone who wears a tracksuit most of the time and jeans with a polo shirt when going out on the town. The girls would wear tracksuit tucked into ugg style boots, the boys trainers.

Whats a chav where you are?

Agreed KellyElly but I felt I should respond to ComposHat as she left her post with a question.
OP also pointed out why she was asking what she was. And she's right, it has different meanings to different people.
I will definitely not want to use 'chav' again myself knowing that it is so controversial. I had no idea until today. Look what you learn on MN.

I'm in a happy place, well I will be. Off to the library.....
It really was an interesting thread and I have learned about the connotations of the word in the much bigger picture.

Hating someone for the colour of their skin, or their culture is quite different to calling someone a 'chav' for behaving loutishly and wearing designer/fake designer clothes - isn't it? Nowhere in that Oxford Dictionary definition does skin colour get mentioned for 'chav'
I always consider someone a 'chav' when they are behaving really badly and without consideration for other people, usually when you're out and about. It's their behaviour that makes you notice/judge them

I think you are kidding yourself if you think there isn't a class element to the use of the term 'Chav.'

Would you look at a bunch of pissed up bankers dressed up in Saville Row suits being loud and obnoxious or a group of middle-class mothers dressed head to toe in Boden being rude and dismissive of the waitress and think 'what a bunch of chavs'?

I don't doubt a pejorative term would float into your mind (as it would mine) but I doubt it would be 'chav.'

The skin colour thing is a canard. If you stereotype a group of people based on shared characteristics then you are guilty of bigotry. 'The Paki Shop' is based on a notion that running a corner shop is an activity undertaken by people of a certain type - Never mind the fact that the bloke was actually a Sri Lankan and the 'Paki Shop' in the next town was run by a couple from Turkey.

I also consider chav as derogatory as a racial slur

Yes, we do tend to bounce around the same freds, it is because we have the same excellent taste in music

I'm genuinely not, but am highly flattered to be mistaken for them

ComposHat. By dictionary definition lower-class is mentioned for chav. Nowhere am I kidding myself on that!
I frequently see be-Bodened Mummies treating the Waitress like shit. I generally think 'wankers' actually. But then 'Boden' has its own associations (some may say stigma) too doesn't it? Am I missing something, should I be offended as I am about to put on my Boden mac for the school run?
Maybe I can mix it up a bit and put on my Hunters too?

It drives me nuts when people think having a pop at chavs is the same as having a go at the working class. It's bloody not. Chavs don't work and have no intention of. They hang around in packs and speak in that stupid fucking "innit bruv" type way. I love the way the middle-class get their knickers in a twist about this but would soon change their mind if they lived within 50 ft of one

I did say it would turn..

Omg, just read this with my jaw hanging open, the british are OBSESSED with class. and grammar!!
in my country only older frumpy women with dogs , and cars that smell of dogs wear those barbour coats. they r so frumpy. usually worn by people who have a 12 year old volvo estate. i cant reconcile them at all with fake eyelashes etc

Its always an insult.

Directed towards a person you feel is beneath you. That's the problem.

Oh and the poster up thread whose ten year old insults people by calling them gypsies, did you mean to bring her up to be racist.

It's a boy and we called him up on it, thanks.

That is good news indeed.

The calling him on it, not him being a boy