To be annoyed when people think the word ‘chav’

[DrScully]

...is offensive to working class people?

Sorted by the ‘students laughing at the working classes’ thread.

My Mum is proper working class. Grew up in extreme poverty in a big industrial city. She left school at 15, got a job. Says ‘breakfast, dinner and tea’ and ‘toilet’, would say ‘serviette’ and ‘living room’.

She uses the word chav to mean a certain type of person, someone of low intelligence and education, who has poor taste and does not conduct themselves with dignities. She would never, in a million years, associate it with being working class.

For example, she would call Katie Price a ‘chav’, because of the way she dresses, what she’s called her kids etc, despite the fact that Katie Price is a millionaire who was raised middle class, riding horses.

She would never call someone a chav who was a normal working class person, e.g a single mum in jeans and a tshirt who works as a cleaner, a bus driver, a bin man etc.

It annoys me when people chime in on threads with ‘how dare you use chav, it’s very classist and offensive towards the working class.’ While I understand it’s not a nice thing to say, not all working class people are stood about smoking in tracksuits! My understanding is it is a taste based insult, not a class based one like pleb.

AIBU over this? It’s not a word I fling around willy billy by any means, and I can see that it’s not a nice thing to call someone, but why the hell does it now mean all working class people?!

Am I

so living room is working class talk? (Genuine question)

I thought it was? Or is it lounge?

I have no idea, I’m proper common me

Chav however applied is pretty unpleasant. There is no acceptable way to use the word.

I don’t know either OP, If it’s true I never knew!

I often think this OP. My family (working class, big family, snap council estate house) use it in the same way.

What would she call a sofa /settee ? my mum always said a "couch "is common so we'd had a settee dh calls it a couch however and it does make me cringe a bit

When I first moved to the UK from the US, I thought 'chav' was the UK equivalent to 'white trash' (which to me sounds nastier). The latter phrase is used regardless of income.

Yanbu and I pointed this out on that thread too.
A chav is a certain sort of person, usually brash, flash and vulgar with no social graces.It's not interchangeable with "working class" as most wc people are not Chavs!

X2boys - she’d call it a settee I think!

My friends are all working class & call people chavs

Argh. It's NOT interchangeable! Stoopit phone.

I agree it's not interchangeable but I still think chav is a really offensive term.

I see chav the same as ‘white trash’
I believe it’s as unacceptable as describing someone as ‘ghetto’

I agree with most of the people on this thread - my husband most definitely comes from a working class family but has always worked hard and now provides what you might call a very 'middle class' lifestyle for us. He might be working class, he's definitely not a chav.

On the other hand, his sister has barely ever worked a day in her life - except maybe the amount of effort she puts into taking advantage of the people around her, which along with her benefits earns her a pretty good living. She pops out kids willy nilly with no intention of financially (or practically) supporting them herself, and thinks that putting them (and herself) into expensive clothes is more important than their education, nutrition etc. She always has the most up to date iPhones, iPads, games consoles, decent cars etc. and always has hideous, over long gel nails but is proud of never having read a book in her life and doesn't intend her children to read any either. She is most definitely a chav.

Being poor, being uneducated or being working class don't make you a chav, it's an attitude - and those on Mumsnet who get all huffy about the word need to unclench. There are lazy, unpleasant people in the world who deserve to be called out on their behaviour. Why is this such a problem to you?

I'm proper working class and I never use the word "chav." I think it's a horrible snobby word that some people use because they think they're better than others.

They added chav to the dictionary only a few years ago:-

a young lower-class person typified by brash and loutish behaviour.

I agree op chavs are chavs. When i was a teenager it was always "emos verse chavs". The chavs would wear trackys and burberry baseball hats and have vicious dogs and would verbally and physically assault us at every oppurtunity. We still have them now. I have zero time for chavs and zero time for people getting offended on the thugs behalf.

I'm working class and 'Chav' is for horrible people. Doesn't matter what 'class' they are.

My favourite thing about the word chav is that i had never heard anyone offeneded by it until mumsnet and then it seems to be the people who wouldnt know a chav if one jumped up and bit them in the arse that take offence.

Anyway, thought the 'upper class' called everyone else 'oinks'.

Yep mumsnet is the only place thats offended by chav..because everyone else knows what a chav is. Aka a thug. They deserve the title. Its this bullshit hug a hoodie all over again.

I thought it was offensive to gypsies?

The place on mumsnet where it pops up a lot and where it causes offence is on the baby names board. Someone will frequently say a name is chavy and I do think that's offensive as what they really mean is working class.

Chav originated as an acronym for “Council Housed And Violent”. So it is rooted in snobbery towards the working class, given that the majority of people in council housing were working class. I hate it. It’s a horrible word, sneery and dismissive.

If anyone wants a good visual of chavs watch "murdered for being different." It was chavs that murdered sophie lancaster for her appearance. Abusing alternative people became.a crime after that. Also google.2007 the summer of violence. Thats all chav violence on alternative people.