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

martha
Yeah it was awful. Luckily I was friendly with the chavs because I never really fit any of the labels. But none of them have changed, they’re all still horrible.

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

The only kids I knew who called themselves such were doing so because they thought it was funny. Usually followed by someone saying ‘you can’t be a chav, your parents work and you have a nice house’. People try and delude themselves into thinking it’s not about class, because they can’t admit they’re a bit of a judgmental snob, regardless of their own background.

Chav doesn’t mean violent thug, that’s just violent thug. You only have to read the endless ‘chavvy baby/kid names’ threads on here to see what people really think and use the word. ‘All Tylers are naughty’, ‘all girls with Mae in their name are pregnant by 13’, ‘you can really tell what the parents are like with kids like that, chavs’.

Anyone who thinks chav is insulting to working class simply dont understand the word.

Chav is not working class.

Weirdly on here it seems to be the uptight middle classes telling us working classes this is all about class. Virtue signalling at its finest.

It is offensive as it another way of saying 'common.'
The rich elite can be thuggish too!

a person with an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth who seeks to associate with social superiors and looks down on those regarded as socially inferior

Definition of a snob. It’s not an insult necessarily, it describes a few posters on here to a T.

I don't know why people get their knickers in a twist.
Chav,these days, is more an identity now and a way of dressing. Yes they are usually from council estates, dress in knock off or genuine branded/designer gear, are unemployed/from an unemployed family or one that is on minimum wage. Have a confident arrogance about them. It's a subculture.

I used to live on an estate years ago that was fairly full of them. They didn't see it as a derogatory word, in fact they were quite comfortable and proud of their identity.
It's seemingly the middle class that want to be seen as PC that claim it's an awful, derogatory word. Often they don't give a stuff if their education levels are lower and probably wouldn't give a fig about your upstanding claims of how awful the word is.

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

Nah.

Chav is an insult and meant to be. Just like Toff. Or fucking idiot. Or cunt.

Chav is the NON working class anyway, not the working class.

Chav is an insult

Of course its insulting. Thats its entire purpose

I thought 'pleb' related to intelligence, not class. It meant someone was stupid, when I was at school (the last time I heard it actually used towards someone).

slutty 100% its a subculture. Exactly like how skinheads were seen violent thugs. They pride themselves on low intelligence and threatening behaviour. Clearly people defending them have never been violently assaulted on their way to school. In school. On their way home from school. In the park. On the way to friends house/shops. Haunts me still over 10 years later.

Chavvy to me is a behaviour rather than a social class I know lots of working class people who would never be described as chavvy

If I use it (can't pretend I don't) I use it as a synonym for " entitled" and apply it to anyone who fits the bill in the moment regardless of income, education or perceived status.
I avoid ever using it in front of my dd because it is as vile as the f-bomb. Which I also use. I often use them together. Not very proud of myself, there.

You need a word to describe Chavvy people & Chav does very well!!

All the other words of that ilk have been reclaimed by the Travelling community & aren't deemed appropriate anymore (in public anyway).

I thought "chav" was an anagram for "council housed and violent", or it originally was, anyway. So therefore, one must at least on a lower income to be able to live in council housing and therefore be able to e classed as a chav?

DH has a book called "Chavs", I think Owen Jones wrote it. I've been meaning to read it for ages but I believe the message is that the word chav is a way of demonising the working class and making them appear violent, stupid and something to mock. I have no idea if the book is any good, that's just what I got from DH and he's generally a good judge in these things.

I think of the word chav to be synonymous with a "hoodie" (person not the item of clothing) or "group of teenagers hanging around outside the corner shop being a bit too loud and swear-y", but I can't remember ever using it.

It isn't acceptable to call people chavs, but I do agree that it is not a synonym for 'working class' at all. I think that was the question!

1. I meant acronym (always use the wrong word there)

2. Just read the full thread - oysterbabe pointed out its been around for centuries. Didn't know that at all! However, in modern usage chav has definitely the connotations of council housed

rosamore strangely enough, groups of middle class teens can hang around and be a bit sweary too.

I never use it. I think it's an awful word.

Katie Price is a chav, as is Wayne Rooney. They may have the wealth of the upper class but they are far from being upper class.

slutty - I know! All teenagers can be loud and swear-y, doubt a group of private school boys (generalisation) would be called chavs though and they can be bloody loud, sweary, inconsiderate and obnoxious e.g. my little brothers friends. It's not a word I personally use, it's definitely a slang term that I don't understand having not grown up in the UK, but I'm trying to work out how I've even come to have assumptions based on the word.

Sofa in the sitting room.

The word lounge makes me skin crawl.

**misses point but agrees 😎