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

It’s not a class related insult, being a chav is about behaviour, a certain look etc.

You can have all the money in the world and still be a chav. Katie Price and many footballers and their wives prove the point. In fact a lot of the time, some of the most expensive, flashy, designer gear is the most chavvy imo!

YABU.
It's a very sneery term.

I think a lot of the KP/footballers wives are more gaudy rather than chavvy.

Ah I remember the chavs from my childhood. Smoking by 12, Kicked out of school, lived in tracksuits that looked like they needed a good scrub, stealing and picking fights. Often from single parent household or blended family’s where only one adult would work minimum wage if you where lucky and there would be lots of toddlers running around with nappies sagging.

Most of them from what I’ve heard have ended up in jail or the females repeating the cycle of the mothers. Multiple babies by multiple men not working, lots of booze and fags while little Chardonnay is already wondering the streets calling people slags and fat bastards picking fights and little Martin is out breaking and entering to sell on the stolen goods.

It’s not a class related insult, being a chav is about behaviour, a certain look etc.

And what do you think those behaviours and looks are and based on? Not middle class, that’s the whole point. A chav is imagined as the atypical Jeremy Kyle guest, not academic, from a deprived area and with little chance of escaping their socio-economic circle. Just because some think that calling someone with money/better lifestyle a ‘chav’ is ok, it’s the idea of what a chav is that roots the insult in the ‘lower classes’.

Often from single parent household or blended family’s where only one adult would work minimum wage if you where lucky and there would be lots of toddlers running around with nappies sagging

Whoever said this isn’t a class thing really needs to read some of the comments along these lines and readjust their opinion!

I agree with pps. I don't think chav is a very nice word at any time. It's quite commonly thrown around here though.

What especially annoys me is calling a name "chavvy". DS(16) is called Jacob (nn Jake) and when we told people his name we got a lot of "that's a chav name" comments Not exactly sure how, but there you go.

Plum I am with you I think they are northern words not low class words.

So it's ok to look down on people and call them a Chav because they have low intelligence? Lovely.

You might call yourself working class, but you're not classy to sneer at people you deem worse off than yourself.

The first time I heard this word, it was about a guy in our local pub who kept coming in wearing Burberry scarves etc. My friend called him a Chav and explained it was because he was a “commoner” wearing designer gear. He wasn’t particularly bothered about being known as a Chav.

It definitely seems to be more of an insult now about being some sort of “undeserving poor” person from a rough family.

I don’t think intelligence had anything to do with the chavs I knew. They where all actually quite smart when they applied themselves but didn’t want to apply themselves they aspired to their parents life’s. It was viewed as the carefree fuck the world view as along as I have some food/money/clothes I’m ok. There was no ambition to be better or do better they liked their life’s with no rules and no punishments.

I suspect that many MNers would see me as chavvy. I would rather be a chav than a goady cunt.

While I understand it’s not a nice thing to say

So if you acknowledge that calling somebody a chav isn't nice why do it? Do you deliberately set out to do other unpleasant things or do you save your inner bitch for just working class people?

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.

What do you call lazy middle class people who "pop out kids willy nilly? Why do you have a different term of abuse for working class "lazy " people than middle class "lazy " people?

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

This is me

At least I now know

As I read this I asked my dd what room we were in,what I was sitting on and what meal we'd just eaten
She answered, siitting room, sofa and dinner.
I was brought up with lounge, settee and tea, in the north, not in a council house (although lots of my best friends lived, and still live in council houses.) I don't see these as "chavy" words.
Chavvy is that bloody awful cocky, gobby cheeky chappie, thug like behaviour you see from some people, in their "designer" gear and outsized jewellery. As a goth we got some serious crap from those cretins.
Vile bunch.

How about just being annoyed at anyone who uses random insults and judgements against people with struggles they know nothing about? Even Katie price. Isn't she just a woman, like the rest of us, who despite having a child with special needs, a mother with a life limiting illness and a husband who fucks her friends, still manages to be an outstanding business woman.

YANBU. I never heard of anyone who objected to the word chav until I joined Mumsnet. It isn't an insult, it is a description of a certain type of person.

It isn't an insult, it is a description of a certain type of person

It’s the elaboration of what that “type of person” is that’s offensive. You just have to read this thread to see some pretty disgusting comments.

YANBU. Chav is not exclusive (or even most prevalent) amongst the working class. Obviously it us not a nice thing to say but it isn't about class.

In London slang "chavvy" was used to mean a boy child. You can hear Del use it in Only Fools and Horses. My dad also takes it at that meaning, not the unpleasant connotation it now has

it is a description of a certain type of person.

As I said before, when you expand on what ‘that type of person’ is, it does still come down to class underneath it all.

I only ever hear the word chav on mumsnet.
I don’t like the word because I don’t feel it’s very descriptive. Even on this thread it means so many different things to different people, clothes, environment, names.

'Chav' - your sweat panted youth with his hands down his pants rummaging in his balls, with the pants hanging low with his arse hanging our and a pair of Calvins on, a pair of nikes, too much gold, baseball caps have now been replaced with a cloth cap, tattoos up the neck, usually hasn't visited the dentist in a while.

I sincerely doubt he's on the way to MN whimsical 'Oxbridge' which no one in the real world ever says

I always thought the word came from Cheltenham Average. So the average person of Cheltenham.

That’s the local lore here in Cheltenham anyway.