to ask why the UK is so obsessed with classes?

[marghini]

I noticed both here on Mumsnet and in many other venues a lot of discussions about classes.

Since I am not British and talking about classes is really not a thing where I am from, I can't quite wrap my head around this: why do Brits care so much about classes?

Please enlighten this ignorant foreigner!

I'm not English, and it never ceases to amaze me how obsessed the English are by class.

I'm totally with you OP. They are OBSESSED. And so inevitably Mumsnet has lots of threads on the subject.

Not every society or nationality has this obsession.

I don't get it either.

First of all, tell us if you are sitting on a couch, settee or sofa.
Before i came to UK, i thought a sofa was a sofa, but aparrently that piece of furniture in the living room is a settee

This thread is proving the OP's point. People immediately jumping in and providing countless examples about class differences: yet more obsessing about class! It really is baffling.

Where are you from OP?

Lots of countries have people who are obsessed with class.

I know quite a few Indian people for whom this is definitely the case, especially when arranging marriages

Nataleejah In our house the settee was the piece of furniture in the sunroom with wooden back/sides. We'd also call one with cane back/sides a settee. The one in the living room with fabric back and sides was the sofa.

Nataleejah- if it's in the sitting room or drawing room it is a sofa.
If it's in the lounge it's a couch.
If it's in the front room, it's a settee.
If it's in the salon, it's a chaise.

HTH

Marghini (Italian?) you need to read Kate Fox's Watching the English. It's excellent, very well-written and good-naturedly humorous.

I don't think we are. I find the MN thread about classes to be interesting at times but I literally hear no one refer to them what so ever in "real life".

I say living room and was brought up to say settee but now am more likely to say sofa because dp does. What class does that make me?

I'm posh because I believe you have tea at tea time.

Not lunch time or dinner time. You eat your tea at the time for tea.

I also have a den and a lounge and sofas throughout the house. They don't change their name dependent on location.

Is the den under a sheet you hang over your sofas? If so I used to have one of those. I could go and make one right now.

No. I wish it was though. I love dens

It's a weeny room that's too small for any official status, but can fit a two seater and TV in it. I may start calling it the salon

Because it has a startling effect on life chances in the UK.

In my experience lots of countries deny they have class issues and have MASSIVE class issues. I'm in Canada and they swear blind they don't have a class issue.

However, I have made friends with one of the mums at the school gate and I can see people's cogs spinning. She is definitely working class and I am definitely middle class. She doesn't expect her DS to go to university. I expect DD to. She rents an apartment, the bank owns we own a house.

I can see people trying to work it out. The family is lovely but the doctors who are the parents other of DD's friends avoid like the plague. I bet they all think they don't have a 'class' issue but they do.

I wonder this, too.

Also Canadian (waves to MrsT) and while there is definitely a class divide as described above here, it seems like absolutely everything is about class in the UK.

Lunch v dinner
Dinner v supper
Supper v tea

Can't we all just agree it's not breakfast and eat?

DP uses the word supper for the evening meal. Which is dinner - or tea, if you come from Birmingham.

It massively grates on me as it's an inherited affection from his mother, who is from the West Midlands but in denial and pretends she is from Cornwall as that's where she lives now.

Sofa v settee or couch
Sitting room v living room or lounge
Loo v toilet
Napkin v serviette
Loo v toilet
What v pardon
Lunch and supper v dinner and tea

I read that as cheeses! Must get my eyes tested!

I'm not even sure what working class is anymore in the UK, it seems to have moved from those who did manual labour, to people who do not work. As for the rest I'm not that sure anyone really cares.

I'm more concerned we are the have and have nots, and the squeezed middle.

I come from a country which is ostensibly very egalitarian, but in reality it's patently not. In fact, in some ways it's even more complex, because there are far fewer obvious markers in terms of, for example, the 'correct' terms for things, the newspaper you read, supermarket you shop in, etc, etc.

I can't imagine many societies where people aren't arranged into some sort of social hierarchy...

It's more obvious on Mumsnet for the same old reason - people talk about things on here, that they'd never discuss frankly and honestly in real life.

I don't know any country without a class issue or another.

England might be more obvious about it. Only in England (can't think of another one just now) can you buy a flat/house but the land remains the property of someone else! Are there any freehold at all in London? See what the Duke of Westminster, the Earl of Cadogan owns, and only in Central London.

On top of that, the Royal Family is very present in the media

Can't you see an obvious difference between a rich aristocrat and your average lower/ middle class worker?

People are unlikely to understand the class system of any country that is not yours.

The smaller nuances tend not to be noticed by furriners (just as even if you're really fluent, it's difficult to swear convincingly in a second language, though of course some manage it, even when the basic word combinations are known).

I imagine most countries have something that could be labelled a class system. After all, most countries have comparative wealth and poverty, much of which is handed down through the generations.

I disagree with the comment upthread about South Africa. It genuinely doesn't have a class system (although one is rapidly developing). It has a race system instead, one which is only being broken down quite slowly.

However, I really do doubt that the inhabitants of very many countries are nearly so obsessed as the British. I am English myself, now resident in NZ. Inequality of wealth in NZ is at least as great as the UK, yet by comparison the British adherance to the notion of a class system almost looks like tribalism. All the bollocks about accents, terminology, choice of profession or trade, recreational interests etc, etc blah blah blah. Switch onto BBC Radio 4 and it is impossible to find any social issue discussed without someone lapsing into the same old stale analysis of class and harrumphing about how something Really Must Be Done.

So I also disagree that people in the UK are just more self-aware and open about class than people in other countries. More like it's an excuse to scratch an itch and have a moan without actually doing anything about anything.