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

No that's abackronym Smeddum the word's been around since the 19th century.

• a backronym

Where i live Chav is used to describe people who sit around all day in tracksuits on benefits with multiple kids by multiple dads who aren't married and plaster their kids in Adidas and Nike knockoffs the minute their born and usually name them Kai or Lillie Mae or something equal vomit inducing

@Oysterbabe I didn’t realise that!

When I hear the word chav this is what pops into my mind:
Boys- Baseball caps and tracksuits, horrible man jewellry, loads of tattoes, shaved heads, skinny, smoking rollups and drinking cider, picking fights, living on benefits by choice, don't pronounce the "t" in any word ( "woh-a" instead of "water"). Call each other mate and bro, like a joyride and Burberry print.
Girls- Overweight with trashy clothes and fake Uggs, bad makeup, scraped back hair in a high bun or poneytail, huge loop earrings, fake nails with chipped polish, smoking and swearing in front of 3 kids from 3 fathers, moaning about her benefits whilst she plans the next trip to Magaluf, pushing her £500 pram whilst shoplifting from Poundland...

They have nothing to do with working class- they are allergic to work 😡...

Chav originated as an acronym for “Council Housed And Violent”.

No, that is widely believed to be a backronym.

It has its routes and usage well before that originating angle came out.

@Justanotherlurker I didn’t know that until a PP pointed it out. It’s still a horrid word though.

Boys- Baseball caps and tracksuits, horrible man jewellry, loads of tattoes, shaved heads, skinny, smoking rollups and drinking cider, picking fights, living on benefits by choice, don't pronounce the "t" in any word ( "woh-a" instead of "water"). Call each other mate and bro, like a joyride and Burberry print.
Girls- Overweight with trashy clothes and fake Uggs, bad makeup, scraped back hair in a high bun or poneytail, huge loop earrings, fake nails with chipped polish, smoking and swearing in front of 3 kids from 3 fathers, moaning about her benefits whilst she plans the next trip to Magaluf, pushing her £500 pram whilst shoplifting from Poundland...

Wow. Just wow.

Chav originated as an acronym for “Council Housed And Violent”.

No it didn't. That meaning was invented a long time after the term came into widespread use (see the Etymology section at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav).

When I first heard the expression some time in the late nineteen-nineties it was said to derive from a local description of people from Chatham. But I don't know whether there's any truth in that, either.

Chav originated as an acronym for “Council Housed And Violent”.

No, it didn’t

I KNOW! And I’ve acknowledged it 3 times now. Fucks sake.

We don't have chavs in Ireland we have skangers.

Says ‘breakfast, dinner and tea’ and ‘toilet’, would say ‘serviette’ and ‘living room’

Sorry but I don't think these are working class words, northern perhaps. I am northern and proud and use all of the above words but with professional jobs and a joint income of nearly £170k a year I'm not sure I think I am working class.

It's not OK to assume all working class people are chavs but your post has the suggestion that all people that say dinner, tea and living room are working class doesn't it?

in fact wrongly or rightly I am really irritated by that!

not all working class people are stood about smoking in tracksuits!

I would say I'm working class myself but that's the kind of person I've always associated the word chav with

To me it means:

1. Dress a certain way (different from the Boden/active wear mums)
2. Normally quite a few children
3. Mum doesn't work (childcare would cost more than min wage for the many children ranging from 18-1)
4. Dad absent or manual labourer
5. 4 year old in pushchair with dummy
6. Complain/shout at teacher if their child is told off.

It's offensive.

I'm working class and use the word chav.
It first became popular when I was in school and was usually attributed to people who like dance music, fake Burberry, tracksuits, fags and foul language.

It certainly wasn't a class thing as all my friends were working class and we were goths punks and metalheads.

I think only people who were teenagers in the early noughties really understand it.
Emo vs chav.
Chavs self identified as chavs so it was hardly offensive to them!

yes NotUmbongoUnchained exactly that!

Maybe it's because the working class are more likely to be chavvy (according to your description).

Where i live Chav is used to describe people who sit around all day in tracksuits on benefits with multiple kids by multiple dads who aren't married and plaster their kids in Adidas and Nike knockoffs the minute their born and usually name them Kai or Lillie Mae or something equal vomit inducing

Well I’m sure little Kai or Lillie Mae would at least know the difference between ‘their born’ and ‘they’re born’.

This is a charming thread. Who knew it was into judge and look down on others, as long as you don’t bring class into it? Though this is still MN, and class will always be a factor even if we all pretend otherwise.

Working class here and everyone I know looks down on chavvy people (though growing up in the middle of nowhere, I didn’t even know what a chav was til we went to university, there really weren’t any chavs near where I lived).

Chavs are basically people who talk loudly and have no social graces at all and make a nuisance of themselves.

Has fuck all to do with being working class.

"Though this is still MN, and class will always be a factor even if we all pretend otherwise."

Ironic, eh.

notumbongo exactly. These people made mine and my friends lives absolute hell. They murdered sophie lancaster and tried to kill her boyfriend Rob. I myself lost teeth had multiple head injuries during the summee of violence. Its really strange to hear people defending them.

Mumsnet is the only place I've ever encountered someone considering 'chav' unacceptable.

I was a teenager in the early 00s and nobody called themselves "chavs."