To think I am not posh???

[LadyShirazz]

Our lodger has just informed me that I am "the poshest person he has ever met". Not in a nasty way at all, but at the same time in an entirely genuine one too.

Fair do's - I have the most plummy cut-glass accent imaginable which I hate. God only knows where I've acquired it from, as the rest of the family don't speak anything like this - I can only put it down to having moved around a lot as a child, and therefore never having picked up a particular accent. It's not even one of those "smooth as silk" Joanna Lumley accents either - think more the Queen with constipation (but also shit-faced, so lots of 'shits' and 'fucks' thrown in to the mix too...).

I do speak well and write well. I did go to Cambridge. I do work for a "big name" in The City that is a traditional haunt of the public school types many of them wankers - am new - that's another topic.

But, really, I come from true salt-of-the-earth stock. My mum is a Yorkshire farm lass, and my dad grew up in the slums (true sense of the word there) of the Black Country, and was the first person in his family to go to university (where he met my mum).

His choice of degree (engineering) has afforded the family until it went to shit a fairly "middle class" lifestyle, but certainly not a "posh" one. I went to Cambridge from a bog-standard comp on the basis of my grades (and a lot of hard work) - not my background. I only wish I had a trust fund, but am just working hard, alongside my OH, and caring for my elderly MIL - more or less like all the rest of us. We're okay financially, but by no means rich.

Anyway, surely - if we were that posh - we wouldn't be renting out our main bedroom of our two-bed flat to a lodger in the first place...???

I am definitely not taking this as an insult and am not offended - nor am I intending to cast aspersions on any one from any background at all.

AIBU though to not like assumptions being made on me or my background on the basis of my accent, when a) it's something I can't help and b) actually the very opposite is true...???

[brightnearly]

If you truly were posh, you wouldn't have given this remark any further thought at all.

[thehypocritesoaf]

There- the queen has told the Lady that she is posh. That's all the confirmation we needed!

[Moln]

When you drink tea do you hold out your little finger?

[ouryve]

I don't see it as a stealth boast.

I was the first person in my family to go to university, as was DH. OP mentioning that sets context to her experience. I've had plenty of "posh" comments in my lifetime and find the obsession that some people have with "class" a little bizarre, sometimes.

I was called posh at school as a means of derision, but I've had funnier encounters with the label as an adult - particularly the person (from the Midlands, I think) who blurted out "I thought you were a Geordie but you're far too posh for that!"

[cleaty]

I would think you were posh too from your description.

[flanjabelle]

I apparently sound posh. I think its because I live in Essex but I dont have the rediculous over exaggerated Essex accent that seems to have become popular. I dont try to put on a posh accent, and I don't sound like the queen, I just don't sound like I'm off of TOWIE.

You dont sound posh to me, where do you shop? If its waitrose or m&s I might be wrong.

[Only1scoop]

Are you Chloe Jasmine?

[VelvetSpoon]

It's all relative, people's perspectives are so different.

As a child, everyone I went to school with thought I was the poshest child in the world. For a while my nickname was Margot (as in The Good Life character). This was mainly because I used a tissue rather than my sleeve to wipe my nose, said please and thank you, sounded my aitches and -ings. Rumours went round I lived in a big house and my dad drove a Rolls In fact, I lived in a council house and my dad drove whatever car the firm he worked for let him borrow that week.

I also went to Cambridge - most people there treated me like a complete peasant, I was literally the commonest and poorest person they'd ever met. Likewise when I worked in the City. Everywhere I've ever worked has considered me something of a chav, because I've never done the posh girl's uniform of smart suit and low heels, I don't have straight hair (as I was long ago told, curly hair is common...) and I wear lots of makeup.

However outside work, most of my friends think of me as the posh, well-cultured one.

I think I'd rather just be somewhere in the middle if I'm honest!

[nilbyname]

onescoop ha! You're so on the money!

[WorldsBiggestGrotbag]

sproke what is an 'official type person'?
I get called posh sometimes too. I'm not at all. DH has an accent like I imagine yours to be; he moved around a lot as a child and it is quite generically 'southern'. He is quite posh though.

[thehypocritesoaf]

But the op is 2nd generation university educated. Most of us wouldn't think to mention that.

[johnImonlydancing]

Some are born posh, some acquire poshness, and some have poshness thrust upon them. Sounds like you're one of the latter two.

[PastaLaFeasta]

But you came from a middle class background with a degree educated parent. Depending on his age, having a degree was pretty unusual and your going to uni is not unexpected. Your background is similar to my DH's who is a bit posh comparatively. So yes you are also pretty posh to the average person in the UK. Having lodgers seems very middle class strangely, from those I've met.

[DickDewy]

As you said, you can hardly be posh and have to take in a lodger. And a proper posho would never address the subject of class anyway.

Accent means nothing. I have a completely RC accent, as do all of my siblings, but we are all mortgaged working class. We all went to university - big deal.

[swimmerforlife]

My mum's side of the family and my friends think I am posh because I work in the city of London and have a double degree (one being law), my mum was the only other person in my family to gain a degree.

I don't think I am, I went to a bog standard University, have a kiwi accent, live in a 3 bed in the suburbs. My hometown is a place in the arse end of nowhere and has very little going for it. And I am currently sitting stuffing myself with pringles

[LadyShirazz]

I mentioned family background as to me that's what being "truly" posh is - growing up in a family where privilege is taken for granted, good schools and universities are par for the course, and wealth or failing that connections matter.

That's not me!

Oh, and Tescoes, sofa and no butter dish - eat spag bol off our knees in front of Corriemost nights.

Am aware that I'm more fortunate than many, but would never have classed myself as anything other than "middle class" or maybe "professional" - two very different things than traditionally "posh".

FYI lodger has a quite professional (if "ground up", "self made" etc rathe than degree route) line of work and a huge house, so was probably better off than we are - he's just going through a divorce now though, hence being resident at ours.

[WorraLiberty]

Clearly you have negative associations of what posh is/means as though you say your not offended, the rest of the post indicates that you are.

I'm not so sure.

I get the impression the OP is secretly pleased to be called 'posh'.

And let's face it. If you can change your accent to one you apparently hate, then you can change it to one you don't.

[HappySeven]

Why can't you be salt of the earth stock if you're posh? You say you'd love to be posh and yet your OP gives the impression that you really wouldn't.

[bertsdinner]

I think its all relative to the people around you. I've been called posh and told I "talk posh", and I don't even have a posh accent. Its a Yorkshire one, but not broad ( as in "ee bah eckythump" stereotype). I was called posh at school because of this. I also get called posh at work because I read the Independant (?) and I grow my own fruit and veg (strawberries and tomatoes in pots, not orchards). Apparantly, growing your own is a sign of poshness.

I like your description of your accent OP, very amusing thinking of the Queen's voice but constipated.

[Only1scoop]

Op I think you're actually flattered....rather than offended.

[Cel982]

Rightly or wrongly, I think speech is the No. 1 class signifier that people use to judge others, even if largely unconsciously. Way more than where you came from or what you do or whether you put the milk in first. I know I do it, without thinking about it. I wouldn't stress about it, he probably thought he was complimenting you.

[BabyGanoush]

It is all relative

I get mistaken for posh, but genuinely posh people (the ones in Debrett's) are not taken in. Ever.

[LadyShirazz]

I'm certainly not offended and his comment was never meant to be anything other than a compliment.

It's just not true!

[PerspicaciaTick]

Honestly? Don't give it another moments thought.
People where I live are always saying that I am posh - because my scone sounds like one instead of own. They know nothing.

[Liomsa]

Of course you can be 'posh' and poor enough to take in a lodger - social class has very little correlation with income.

OP, I think your mistake is thinking that there is some 'correct' one-size-fits-all definition of 'poshness'. To your lodger, you code as 'posh'. To someone further up the social scale - presumably to classmates at Cambridge when you started? - you wouldn't, or not necessarily. There are people who would read glossy, spanking-new Tudorbethan, a glossy 4x4 and a huge blowdry as coding far 'posher' than a knackered estate car, threadbare tweeds, and a crumbling gate lodge of Mater and Pater's pile.

I'm the working-class child of illiterate parents who grew up without an indoor loo, but I code as 'posh' to DH's much more aggressively working-class uncles (who are far wealthier than I am).