to find it strange how some MN's are SO offended by the word Chav

[falolenhard]

Chav:
meaning a lower-class person who displays brash and loutish behavior and wears real or imitation designer

Snob:
A person with an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth who seeks to associate with social superiors

Both these terms are derogatory.
So why is it ok to call someone a snob (I bet nobody would say a word and it wouldn't get pulled)- but not a chav on here?

To be offended by one and not the other is a form of Inverted Snobbery?

Yes OP but other people would have looked at your mother and her hard-working family and called you chavs, because of where you lived. That's how it works.
I never understand why people are so determined to hold on to their right to use insulting terminology. I learned lots of stuff from mumsnet about words that can cause upset to others and am glad, as now I can avoid using them. Isn't that the natural reaction?

Okay Whiskwarrior you are right and everyone else is wrong and you don't need to explain your arguments or justify anything you've said but everyone who disagrees with you must just realise they're misguided and mistaken. Okay, then.

Interesting. Chav is classed as damaging to the working classes.

Can those from the working classes use it?

For the record, I grew up on a council estate, but I remember my 'council house' mother looking down on some people, because they didn't have any standards....eg swearing, drinking too much, not dressing their children adequately, no manners etc.
If she was in this 'day and age' she would have called them chavs

I know exactly what you mean. The term has nothing to do with being working class and it's not an attack on working class people (whatever that might mean)

The thread that this thread is about was happy to exchange the word 'chav' for 'young mum' here and there.

That's what I took issue with.

slithy it is not damaging to the working class.

It is insulting to working class people, whether those in work or those trying to live a decent life for themselves and their families on benefits,to try to say the word applies wholesale to the "working class"

I was quoting an earlier poster...

Yes OP but other people would have looked at your mother and her hard-working family and called you chavs, because of where you lived. That's how it works.

Iggi, it was the complete opposite.
You are probably right that people 'higher up' would have looked down on us - which, lets face it, has always happened.
But, the people in our immediate social circle (the other council estate dwellers) actually considered us 'snobs' :) - all because we were always perfectly 'turned out' and dressed well and were well-spoken, even though we were as poor as everybody else.

The point I'm trying to make is - that you get grades of 'standards' in all parts of society.
Even in my mother's little 'council house environment' there were standards to be kept and adhered and aspired to. It was important. And it was something that didn't need 'money' to be able to achieve it.
After all - Good Manners are Free. Anybody can achieve them - Rich or Poor.

So even back then, there were people that were seen as 'Chavs' (new word for common/no standard/swearing degenerates).

Why can people not see that?

"Demonisation of the working classes"

There's another one.

Not in any way shape or form my opinion, I've made it clear that for me chav doesn't relate to class or wealth.

Exactly. I have never thought of the terms 'chav' and 'working class' as being interchangeable. They mean totally different things and attitudes like slithy's and warrior's are actually quite insulting to the many many people who don't have much money but are admirable citizens who inspire respect and high regard.

What!

What attitude!

x post slithy.

:(

Apologies Slithy. I used your name incorrectly.

:) cheers, that'll teach me not to use quote marks

Yes, it's all your fault Slithy

"Demonisation of the working classes" is the name if a book not something whisk has said, you know that right?

Because it's a bit odd saying she's insulting the working classes, I don't understand how your getting that?

She seems to assume that when people talk about chavs they're talking about working class people.

Ok there have clearly been some crossed wires.

Whisk mentioned the 'damaging to the working classes' in relation to the word vulgar in comparison to the word chav.

Someone else mentioned the book demonisation etc.

Clearly, these viewpoints exist. My question is for those people who perceive the word chav that way, would they be more accepting of a working class person using it?

Bearing in mind we have no idea of the socioeconomic backgrounds of most of those posting on this thread.

Meant to add, my mother (who was poor and lived in a Council house - corny but true) would probably have looked down on that swearing, rude, ill-mannered mother in Debenhams. She wouldn't have used the term 'Chav', because it didn't exist back then. But, any words she would have used, wouldn't have been complimentary!

Wonder what all these 'I'm really socially aware and like to read the latest bullshit lets get down and understand Council House people^ lot' would make of that?

It's not damaging to the working classes. Most 'chavs' are probably not working .

My mother used to call people 'common as muck'. I don't remember anyone saying she was demonising the working classes. She was working class. It is more to do lifestyle and behaviour and the way they present themselves to the world. You would be classed as common if you dressed 'tartyly, swore or shouted in public, were promiscuious, or got drunk too often- and especially if you did a combination of the above.
Chav is used in a similar way here now, by the next generation. A baby name could be described as chavvy just as my mum would have described it as common.

cheeepuff, you get it! :)

My father's family had very little money, my mother's sister lives in a council house and I had an uncle who couldn't even afford to buy his children Santa Claus presents and had to wait until the January sales to buy them a few gifts; but they would have used the equivalent of 'chav' to describe people who leeched off the taxpayer, swore in public, dressed vulgarly or provocatively or subjected their neighbours to inconsiderate anti-social behaviour.

There's a huge difference between beiing poor or working class and being common and having no aspirations for your children or desire to see them educated and decent citizens and having a chance of a future with prospects.

Sorry Slithy I picked your point up incorrectly.