AIBU to really not like the word Chav ?

[Frequentblooper]

I've seen a few threads now where people use this word to describe others who I guess they feel are beaneth them ? The problem I have with this is I know these people may well view me as a "Chav" I certainly have all the background of one (although my eyebrows are normal) and although I work I can't afford my own house so I rent and I can't afford the best clothes so j have to shop at places like "select" etc also members of my family who I love could also be described as a "Chav". I think it's hate speech from middle and upper classes. I would like to say please can people not use it. I know it may be not meant in hatred but when I read that my heart sinks a little

It originally comes from the Romany word chavi or chavo which means boy, youth.

A traveller told me the word 'chav' has been taken from the traveller community. It means 'child'.

And chavo is a Romany word for boy child, chavvy baby. But it still isn't a nice word, as it is usually used to mean 'brat'.

Urban myth has it being Council House And Violent.

Sham 69 use it in Hersham Boys - Dick I Chavvy, It's the Mudtown Slosher - way back in the 70s.

I heard it quite a lot in the mid-70s, via the South East/London migrant workers in rural East Anglia. It meant making a bollocks of something, as in dick ere/I chavvy but also to chav meant to steal. It was used by both the local 'Fenners' as well as the ex-Londoners

And the scary men at fairgrounds used it too... usually about the gobby boys wandering around trying to look hard.

Or what summer said! ^

It's used where I live to describe people with a certain attitude. For example, the other morning the little playground by my house was littered with empty cans and there was a smashed vodka bottle under the swings - I have no issue with calling the twats who left broken glass in a kids play park chavs. I've never heard it used as a blanket description of wc, more as a derogatory term for scummy losers who cause trouble and make things miserable for others.

Agree Bailey101. I don't associate the word with working class, you can have money and still be a chav.

I'm totally with pilates and bailey. I think Chav is often an insult but not a blanket term for those with less money. Absloutely true that you can have money and be a chav. In my youth (sound like i'm ancient at 37..) we used scrote which is also awful. But this would be for skanky lads spitting on the ground in tracksuits and trainers etc which probably cost a damn sight more than I would spend on my clothes...(ps how do you get the emojis to work on mn? I just don't get it ...)

I don't associate it with purely being WC. You can live in a bedsit with no money but still have class. Just wondering how many people that get offended about the word Chav have no qualms whatsoever about using the word 'Toff' as a derogatory term?

The racism across the baby names threads shows the ignorance of its posters. The lack of knowledge around Language, Cultures etc is astounding.

Why you'd ask the opinion of someone with so little World knowledge, puzzles me.

As for Chav, I don't like people to be summed up, by the use of a negative stereotype.

I think it's a show of stupidity and arrogance if you think people are ever so easily categorised.

I've never known "Toff" to be used in a derogatory way, only to describe a lifestyle that isn't accessable to all.

Toff = Toffee Nosed = Snob

I think!

'Chav' IMO is not used to describe working class people at all.

It was much used to describe the 'Lauren' type character in the Catherine Tate series.

I think of the Burberry fake caps....the nasty gold chains. Three cars welded together with a big cherry popper exhaust.

I think it's taken slightly seriously to be honest.

Can't get too worked up over it really. As posters have said when I grew up it was 'commen'.

I grew up on a council estate and we all knew the commen families. The ones who swore, caused trouble and were generally vile.

It's nothing to do with class or money.

You see them on Jeremy Kyle and with lots of cash on housewives of blah blah blah.

If people behave a certain way they get labelled.

So was it in the 90's/Noughties that it was picked up and used to mean Lauren/TOWIE/Ali G etc? All that burberry bling, orangeness and loud, loud voices spouting weird nonsensical blathering?

I didn't have a telly then, so I seem to have missed those programmes. So I still think of it as a more WC, wheeler dealer, gobby, fell-off-the-back-of-a-lorry, not at all trustworthy fly boy!

I dislike the term but I think it's used more to describe a person's attitude than anything else.

For instance you can have loads of money and still be seen as chavvy by other people.
The old Harry Enfield 'Considerably richer than Yow' couple come across as chavs.

In other words, calling someone a Chav is in place of calling them Common.

I would say yes

I probably first heard it personally late 90's.

I don't think thats true usual, I remember watching a programme about Kate moss wearing burberry and saying she knew it made her chavvy but she didn't care. Burberry is expensive and she isn't working class if that makes sense..I knwo where you're coming from but I think the use has changed over time maybe now to reflect a certain style and attitude rather than class...

usual I agree and it is a horrible word used by people who stereotype and don't think.

usual you might use chav to sneer at the working class, but it's not a blanket term to describe everyone from a wc background. Are you that out of touch that you don't realise the huge numbers of different personalities and lifestyles that make up the working class?

Yanbu op. Its derogatory and used far too much on here. No doubt someone will be along to say the middle/upper classes are sneered at too on here for pretentious baby names etc but its never as vicious ime.