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

Umbongo - one of the descriptions about described a chav household as being one where only one adult worked, for minimum wage.

People do not use the word to describe a lifestyle choice - they use it to describe poverty, lack of intelligence, or lack of 'class' ('class' is, of course, determined by whatever the middle and upper classes say it is).

I think people who use the word tell you a lot about who they are tbh. It's not nice.

And I'm working class.

I think people who use the word tell you a lot about who they are tbh. It's not nice

This!

Yeah, the people who don’t understand it do.
Me and the people who I grew up with, when it all came about (I was in secondary school when the great chav vs emo came about) know that chav just means a subset of people. Like I was a punk/goth. My best friend was a chav. My other friends were a mixture of the lot.

@NotUmbongoUnchained I’m too old to have been an emo I was definitely a goth though!

It was weird to see the Goths die out! In a local town there was always a huge gathering of them every Saturday in this grass square. For years and years. Then the gathering slowly got smaller and then they were gone. Really sad!

@NotUmbongoUnchained it was Glasgow city centre when I was a kid for all we probably looked a bit scary we really weren’t! It is sad to see it die out isn’t it?

@Eliza9917 pleb is short for plebeian, the word for commoner in Ancient Rome.

Agree. Mumsnet is very sensitive about the word 'chav' though.

No word is nice if it criticising someone but these words are used all the time but this word provokes a different level of righteousness

I’m not from the UK but my limited understanding of what I have been taught to perceive a “chav” to be has nothing to do with working class. At least they are working! I see “ Chavs” as having no respect ( for themselves and others) rude and lacking in manners, can’t be bothered to work, just take take take, keep on having kids they can’t afford, usually to different fathers and allowing them to run feral in public, usually unsupervised while the mother is on her phone or too busy talking to a friend. Other chavy behaviour is having loud conversations in public ensuring everyone hears your business - especially rude in places where people want to have a quite drink or meal and can’t have a conversation above a chavs volume. And generally just acting very stupid and ignorant, in their on little bubble, blissfully unaware how they are affecting others. Chavs in a nutshell have no standards!

@smeddum yeah it is! There isn’t really anything like it now. I’m just about young enough to know the trends now but not for much longer.

She uses the word chav to mean a certain type of person, someone of low intelligence and education

Oh, that's alright then. So I suppose my brother who has mild learning difficulties would be a chav in her eyes, then. He only scraped a few CSEs at low grades.

usually to different fathers

Funnily enough though, it’s always the women being sneered at and not the men. It’s attitudes like this that piss me off.

My kids have 2 different dads. DS1 is from my marriage, DD and DS2 are with DP.

Smeddum I probably passed by you and wished I was standing with yous

@NotUmbongoUnchained that ship sailed for me a while ago! Teen DSD eyerolls at me when I ask apparently stupid questions about what’s “cool” (I’m reliably informed that even cool is no longer cool, it’s “swag” or “sick” now) and I haven’t a clue what the latest thing is until she asks for it

@ShirleyValentineswall we’d have welcomed you with open arms too! That’s what I loved about being a goth, for me it was about fitting somewhere. Because I’d never had that feeling before.

I have a Roadman brother. Learning his language has been a rollercoaster

What’s a Roadman? (God I feel old and I’m only 36!)

I used to cut about up there wearing a big long coat like the one Eric Draven wore in The Crow (except mine wasn't real leather, more's the pity).

You don’t wanna know

Google Big Shaq. He does a great parody called Mans Not Hot using roadman speak

@ShirleyValentineswall ooh I always wanted one of those!!! I could only afford a black velvet blazer thingy from the Sue Ryder shop! I loved that thing, still have it but there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance I’d fit in it anymore!

@NotUmbongoUnchained I shall have a look!

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

Just like lots of racist insults, do you defend those too?

A Chav describes a certain type of person. Just like saying goth, emo, hipster etc. It is a description, not an insult and nothing like racism.

This was like me with my friends since I was the only goth

I’d argue that it is an insult given some of the distasteful “definitions” here. Umbongo’s definition is as you describe, but not many others on here are anything other than derogatory and perjorative.

@NotUmbongoUnchained well that was an eye opener, I really don’t have a clue what’s “cool” these days!