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?

I think behaviour is a huge part of it, yes. But I agree that it us also class based.

I remember, clear as if it was yesterday, being at the Royal Agriculture College May Ball, friends (male), titled from Hon. to Viscount, being called disgraceful oiks because, well, they were behaving like disgraceful oiks. This was 1988. Had it been 2008 I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that they would have been called disgraceful chavs.

Bullingdon Club (sadly I know very well, still, a fair few of that particularly notable set) who, in our late teens/early twenties, were boorish twats and, if the truth be told, still are, particularly where booze is concerned.

Behaving like oiks isn't the same as being a 'called disgraceful chavs' though, is it? I'd say that actually contradicts the point that the word isn't class-based.

Honestly, it is worth reading "Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Classes" as Owen Jones draws a parallel with Thatcher's attempts to destroy blue-collar values and the currently "acceptability" of using the word. It's a very interesting read. When the New York Times has to explain the word "Chav" for an American audience, they often translate it as "ugly prole". It's hard to deny there is a class element to that! I certainly would never use that word, and wouldn't use "trailer trash" either because of the hatred it embodies.

No, but they were disgraceful oiks and they bloody knew it. Ffwd 30 years and they were disgraceful chavs. Moneyed or not, IMO.

I agree class does come into it, but I also believe that it has sod all to do with money. I'd say KP, KK and the Rooneys are chavs, just that they have real Burberry over fake. I wouldn't call Prince Harry a chav, but I would call his behaviour, at times, chavish. So, yes, I suppose my initial post was a little disingenuous, and I stand corrected.

I really don't agree that people ripping it up at a posh ball would get called chavs. It's not just used to describe bad behaviour.

No, it's not just used to describe bad behaviour, but it can (IMO) be used to describe it, alongside dress, look, life.

Phaedra "Why do so many of you read its [Daily Mail] website if you despise the paper so much?"
I've often wondered that - there are frequently links on MN to articles in the Daily Mail.

I've never seen it used that way in the press etc.

I'm not the press and these are, obviously, my thoughts on it...

Well one persons opinion isn't fact, which is why I gave an example.

But I did find this

prince harry

I think you're right, Harold. 'Posh' people behaving badly would not be called Chavs. They would simply be called Oiks or Louts. The term Chav (in this area, at least; maybe it means different things in different places) is intended as an insult, referring to either someone who is perceived to live on a council estate and on benefits, or someone who has "new" money, but still behaves like the perceived someone who lives on a council estate and on benefits.

Either way, it is an unpleasant description of anyone, and 'Snob' still doesn't quite meet the derogatory expectation of the insult (although, it's still not particularly pleasant).

I called both my Grandmothers "Nanna" - I think the 'Chav' term was not yet in circulation all those years ago! Nanna was simply a name for a Grandmother, I thought. My children call my Mum Nana now. Have never heard any adverse comments about that before

The perception of language across the country is quite complicated, at the end of the day. Possibly what means one thing in one part of the country is not deemed as bad elsewhere

I think louts or maybe yobbos. There isn't a word that immediately springs to mind.

I didn't say my opinion was fact.

While the original meaning of chav was aimed at lower classes, I personally see it as more related to the style and attitude. People who are abusive, self-important and use branded clothes to show their supposed superiority (whether that is real or fake labels, but usually sportswear or Burberry-inspired)

There is an element of snobbery or class involved but I think that is overplayed in these discussions. From what I have experienced calling someone a chav is more about using a derogatory word to describe someone who exhibits certain attitudes, behavioural traits and lifestyle choices that are to varying degrees feckless, selfish, thuggish and antisocial. Typically they are the knock off sporting attire clad clowns you see hanging out in town centres making a nuisance of themselves while drinking cheap cider. The foul mouthed yobs playing rubbish RnB music through their mobile phones at the back of the bus while intimidating passengers. They are the muppets driving around residential streets at 2am on a school night in some shite clapped out car equipped with a 500db bass speaker and a huge “wanker pipe” exhaust making everyone’s lives a misery. They are the arses who have a massive sense of entitlement but zero work ethic. They always know their rights even if they can’t spell them. They are the ones who think terrifying pensioners and those they perceive as weaker than them as a great form of entertainment. They are often the crap parents that set appalling examples to their kids. Any polite requests to moderate their antisocial behaviour no matter how well intentioned is met with insults, threats or actual violence. The Guardian comment pages a few years ago tried several times to define the word chav as some kind of assault by the middle classes to label and demonise the working class and they were rightly slated for trying to conflate the two groups. To those hand wringers who always seem to confer victimhood status on these sort of people and absolve them of any personal responsibility by excusing their crap obnoxious behaviour as always being someone else’s or the states fault try living nextdoor to a family of these people, I have and it bloody awful.

Right, so a mother shouting at her child, full of her own importance, generally acting like a twat but in a plummy accent at a prep school summer gala wearing Boden and Joules would be a chav?

Just because they can attend a prep school summer gala with a plummy accent doesn't mean that they wouldn't be a chav.

I very much doubt the mothers dressed in gap and boden screaming at their children on clapham common would ever be called chavs

< Appoints Cuchullian minister for community affairs >

Chav is definitely to do with class and money

Not necessarily money - Jordan and Cheryl Cole (as was) are chav to the bone. But very rich. As are several footballers' wives.

So there are actually no bars at all to someone being described as a chav, as long as they wear labels and behave badly?

The upper classes are never going to be called 'chavs' no matter how badly they behave. That's bollocks.

What CuChullain said.

They both come from very working class backgrounds Sunna

It has been implied so many times on here and yet people can not see it acting mc or what we perceive to be mc is the right and better way to be

One of my best friends family are from East London the are loud they are brash they are hard working and a wonderful family who support each other my friend is well aware her accent may sound common to some she is proud of her background why should she be more refined so others think better of her