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...???

[CorbynsTopButton]

I also sound way posher than I am, OP. Also oxbridge-educated but my family is not posh.

This used to bother me, as I thought people made assumptions that weren't true. I've also hated the sound of my own voice in the past.

Now I don't give a monkeys. Sometimes I enjoy playing up to the stereotype. It sounds overly simple, but just let it go (as the song goes)... Perfect that top lip curl for when someone uses the word "serviette" in your company...

[CorbynsTopButton]

My favourite test for "true" poshness:

Do you prefer "What?" or "Pardon?" (this was a shocker to me)

[Only1scoop]

Queen I completely agree.

A girl at work was recently making me chuckle talking about her 'working class' boyfriend.

We pointed out that she was actually most likely working class also....

"But I've got a nice job house and car and he only rents" was her reply

[halvedfees]

"what" is correct - it is short for "what did you say..."

And don't get me started on "toilet".

My mother was a snob - but absolutely correct!

[LadyShirazz]

Of course I realise - and appreciate - that I am a lot more fortunate (or privileged, however you put it) than some. And, of course, not as fortunate as others - just like most people.

Believe me, this is not keeping me awake at night or anything! I guess at the time what irked me a little bit was the assumption that, as a "posh" person, I was born with a silver spoon and swanned through a life of private schools and Oxbridge universities as a matter of course, living off my daddy's money for the whole time, and then just landing a City job as soon as I graduated only because I went to school with half the people working here.

The reality was I worked extremely hard for all these things, in often very difficult circumstances (that's another thread). But yes, I may have had to overcome far more obstacles had I been born into more challenging circumstances, where university - let along Oxbridge - would have been seen as an impossibility, rather than something out of the ordinary which I might just achieve if I worked hard enough.

Lodger is basing his assessment on how I speak - not how I live. We tend to go home, slob out with non-posh dinner (pasta, bangers and mash, pie type stuff), watch X Factor, I'm a Celeb, Corrie etc.

Yes I know, that's life however you happen speak! Of course there are far worse things in the world - but isn't the whole point of AIBU about people's minor irritations?

[BertrandRussell]

Oh, I love the what/pardon thing. Some people find it so shocking the refuse to believe it.

The pronunciation of Moët and valet are good ones too.......

[DoYouRememberMe]

Your dad went to university, you moved around a lot as a child and you don't have a regional accent.

You sound like a posho to me.

[Bohemond]

I am exactly the same as you aside from the fact that I remain friends with my social circle from Cambridge - why would I not have done.

And Ali G did go to Cambridge....

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

I have been called "posh" or "posh talker" many times. I am generally mystified by it. I was brought up in a series of council houses, with working class parents. But my Dad did go to University - a beneficiary of the Grammer school system he was the first in his family etc. Weirdly my Mum sounds middle class and well educated - her Dad worked on the railways (manual labour), they were very poor, she left school at 15 and had crappy jobs until she got married and has only ever worked in a child minding capacity. She puts her RP lite accent down to the fact she was raised in the east of England by parents from Canada and Sunderland??

I have a difficult to pin down accent, generally well spoken (not plummy) but with a northern inflection. But to people in the North I sound southern in the South I sound northern! People do like to pigeon hole and I am University educated (ex-poly not Russell group/ Oxbridge), I am fairly confident and opinionated and that can seem 'posh' to some I suppose... I don't know - I am sure I judge people on how they look/ sound, just as much as anyone else. I rarely comment on it because I know 80% of the time my assumptions will be wrong. Not everyone is so circumspect.

[AskBasil]

Posh as fuck, me.

[PennyPants]

Op you are way too polite to be posh.
I have been called posh lots of times and I say "Ey up" and "Duck" regularly.
My DD told me off for looking too posh when I visited her new school wearing a smart jacket. Apparently I looked like the headteacher.

[Iwanttobeadog]

I'm the opposite. Im dead posh but inherently chavvy. What can you do?

[101handbags]

I too get told I am posh purely on the way I speak. I was brought up to speak 'naicely' as it were - my parents corrected every dropped h and t. I like the way I speak. However, there's no money, property, public schools or Oxbridge in my background. People also say where I live is posh - but we don't live in the roads with the 3 million pound houses. People judge. Ignore them.

[Hoppinggreen]

Some of my friends tease me for being posh but I ( and they) know I'm actually not. I went to a Private school( scholarship) and uni ( first in my family), but apparently it's mostly because I don't shop at primark!!
The reason I don't is because you can't park anywhere near so I'm lazy rather than posh.
A good friend has married into the aristocracy, has in laws are absolutely lovely and very very very posh, the difference is that I doubt they have ever even used the word.

[Grazia1984]

Lady, posh doesn't equal rich in the UK, though. Even in the 1800s posh poor aristocrats had to marry rich working/middle class industrialists to fund their lives. Money and posh don't always go together.

[Frostycake]

I was once told by a junior hairdresser that she thought I was posh and must have a butler. She never said why she thought this. Oh how I laughed.

I think that just because someone thinks that you're posh, it doesn't follow that you ARE posh, just that you give the impression of being posh compared to the person you're talking to.

[EmGee]

I've always been told I am 'posh'. I remember my dad saying once when I was upset about someone taking the mick out of the way I said 'one' (this was in Newcastle area) - 'Let them copy your accent rather than you feel you have to copy theirs'. We were forced encouraged to speak 'plainly' at home. As a result, my siblings and I all have very plain accents which basically means posh to anyone who speaks with an accent despite spending much of our childhood in areas with strong regional accents.

Now, SIL really IS posh - aristocratic background - and some of her 'ideas' are different to mine/my parents i.e. prep/public school is a given, wouldn't ever consider a state school. She is lovely. But just has different ideas that's all.

[tootsietoo]

I've had people tell me I'm posh as well! Must be something to do with growing up in Surrey. I've also had someone tell me I'm not (I went to a v. posh higher education establishment and a complete tosser, on meeting my dad once, told me he was "surprised my father didn't have a regional accent" :o)

Posh is not definable. Everyone has different ideas about what it is. I think its mostly the socially mobile people (i.e. the ones who maybe didn't grow up with much money and now have some, or vice versa) who think about it. I used to be very self conscious about my place in the hierarchy, but in the past 10 years or so I've let it go and life is so much easier when you are not worrying about whether you are coming across as too posh or not posh enough.

I agree, it's not nice being pigeon holed by someone because of some superficial thing.

[tootsietoo]

that was supposed to be a smiley

[Verbena37]

Firstly....get the diet coke out of your fridge! It's full of aspartame and that's good for nobody....even posh people.

I was actually bullied by a girl younger than me at work for my accent. She said I was snobby and posh and I'm most definitely not either.

I think my accent has changed over the years from travelling across the UK with my forces husband. I'm also fairly good at languages and I believe it's that which makes you better at acquiring other peoples' accents. If I'm near South African, German, French or Australian people, I will awkwardly start lilting towards their accent. It's actually embarrassing sometimes!

But mainly, I suppose I also sound quite posh.....but I'm not. If I'm with posh sounding people, I do have more of a formal accent I guess.

I wouldn't worry about it and yanbu.....people do judge you on accent and that's wrong. I love all accents and find them very interesting.

[HeighHoghItsBacktoWorkIGo]

It's all relative. In the world you now move in, you are hardly posh. In the world your lodger moves around in, you are posh.

[Pidapie]

I get told I have a "posh" accent or "bbc" accent, and I'm not even British! :P

[BabyGanoush]

Pidapie

me too , it's how we were taught English at school (RP)

My 10 yr old says "toilet" but he also says things like "Are you alright old chap?" He's terribly confused I think...

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Yes, Verbena .... diet coke in your fridge the new MN marker of poshness? Really?
Terrible poisonous stuff - though might have one with ice at the Christmas work do to show willing

[Grazia1984]

Diet is a poison. Only have it if you want to feel ill.