What makes a person 'common'?

[Karlwho]

In your opinion. Just interested.

Oh hell...my list was things DP laughs and says are the opposite of common and I don't realise and just think they are standard for everyone

The type of person who moved into our block of maisonettes a few months ago.

Let’s her kids run riot banging on the bars, leaving her older kids watching the 2 year old.
Swearing out in the garden while on the phone.
Asking someone for a loan of a tenner (with a fag In her hand 🙄 )
Huge hoop earrings - the type I used to like in the early 00’s along with my rag doll necklace
Blaring out rap music with all windows open, god I hear enough of that with having a teenager.

My list could go on 😀
I personally think she’s worse than common though

Thanks BadLad this is starting to look like another great read.

But now I have a dilemma, I don't have stunt fruit, what does this say about me, do I need stunt fruit? Shall I go to the supermarket immediately to get some? What's the best type of stunt fruit.

And most importantly, what the actual fuck IS stunt fruit? I feel quite dim now

Asking a question like this.

You can be loaded and common !

When I was growing up in the 70s it was considered common for a woman to drink pints . I still can't bring myself to drink out of a pint glass. .My mum thought drinking or smoking in the street was common. She was also insistent on good manners and looking clean and tidy though we were pretty poor.

Vertical blinds, the sort you should only find in an office, but I see them on every other house. I hate them.

My mum would be horrified to be considered common but had (and still has) net curtains, mopping up gravy or sauce with bread was compulsory to avoid waste and I had pierced ears. This was late 70's/early 80's. What was considered "common" was bad manners, eating not at a table other than a picnic or at the seaside, wearing skimpy clothes including shorts other than at a beach or sports venue (though shorts were ok for children as long as not at church or something), jeans on Sunday, chewing gum, shouting or otherwise drawing attention to yourself in public.

It’s funny we never had much money at all but my family were v judgemental about people being common or vulgar - for any number of reasons! These included -

• eating chips on a Sunday (I’m guessing because it was a convenience food rather than cooking a proper Sunday dinner)
• wearing ‘too much’ make up ie foundation and eyeliner not just a bit of mascara n lipstick
• women swearing or cursing or drinking beer or men’s drinks

Needless to say I’ve spent adulthood in joyful rebellion!

Men walking around with one hand down the front of their trousers

Oh yes, the doorknob thing! Benjispruce's post reminded me.

So here it is:
If you put your hand on top of the doorknob to open it, you are common. If you put your hand underneath the doorknob to open it, you are uncommon.

People who are loud, rude, sweary in public

I used to work for a company that had a director that did all of the above. He was Eton-educated and had been an officer in a guards regiment. And he was a Marquess, which I think makes him not common.

I also knew a very sweary man who was the oldest son of a baronet.

Poor grammar especially mixing up of tenses or conjugations ‘Was you?’

This has gone full circle with people trying to out-posh each other by saying "I" in completely incorrect situations. See this so much on MN and in emails and really struggle to not say something!

e.g.
"Please contact Sophie and I"
"He gave a present to my husband and I"
"My daughter and I's house"

NO, IT SHOULD BE 'ME' IN ALL OF THE ABOVE!

(well, not the bottom one)

Honestly my personal classification would be:

People who:

• Holiday in Benidorm or Blackpool
• Read the tabloids
• Have tattoos
• Have very strong accents and swear unnecessarily (i.e. not just as an exclamation of 'Oh f*' when something bad has happened BUT in general conversation, all of the time and usually just 'f-ing this, f-thing that'.)
• Use incorrect grammar in conversation- so if you're from the Black Country then this would be using incorrect pronouns e.g. 'Her am' instead of 'She is'; if you're from London then using the wrong form of 'to be' e.g. 'He aint' etc.
• Shop at Asda in PJs!
• Smoke- it's common regardless of how wealthy or upper class you are!
• Are ignorant and unaware of current affairs or basic politics
• Are Xenophobic (e.g. those who voted Brexit purely just to 'keep the immigrants out') and racist
• Hate people who are receiving state assistance and fall for the 'scroungers and benefit cheats' rhetoric even despite evidence to the contrary
• Who binge drink regularly (regardless of actual social class status)

I think you can be as loud and sweary as you like provided you have the right accent.

Wrong accent = common.

ItIsWhatItIsInnit Fri 12-Jul-19 11:01:25
Poor grammar especially mixing up of tenses or conjugations ‘Was you?’

This has gone full circle with people trying to out-posh each other by saying "I" in completely incorrect situations. See this so much on MN and in emails and really struggle to not say something!

e.g.
"Please contact Sophie and I"
"He gave a present to my husband and I"
"My daughter and I's house"

NO, IT SHOULD BE 'ME' IN ALL OF THE ABOVE!

Haha- yes that's very annoying!! Also when people use 'Whom' incorrectly- e.g. 'From whom did you receive a package' when it should only be used to refer to an object of a sentence i.e. 'To whom, did you give the present'. You can only use 'whom' where you could use 'him' or 'her' not 'he' or 'she'.

I come from a long line of the downwardly mobile and my late mother had a wonderful range of sartorial social markers for commoness, such as:

For men: suede shoes worn in town, tweed (unless in the country), brown shoes with blue suits, cravats, check jackets (bookies' jackets, according to ma), sports shoes of any description (unless playing said sport), shirts that weren't cotton, loud ties, shorts unless playing sport or on a beach, white socks ...

for women: visible underwear, including VPL and black bras under light tops, stiletto heels, ankle straps on shoes, wearing black unless at a funeral, low-cut tops (acceptable only in evening or cocktail dresses), party dresses at the races, and, my personal favourite, going out without stockings before Henley.

It was really important that I knew all these rules, given that I grew up on the biggest, roughest council estate in Croydon.

When I was growing up in the 70s it was considered common for a woman to drink pints . I still can't bring myself to drink out of a pint glass.

That's interesting. I grew up in the late 60s/early 70s and it was considered cool for women to drink pints. I wonder if that was a London thing, or possibly because most of the people I knew were quite ... alternative, I suppose.

How dare people have strong accents!

I'd never heard anyone non-jokingly use the word common until I came to mumsnet. It really does seem like a different world sometimes.

Well whatever it is, from the lists here plenty of people would consider me 'common' - but the parents at my DCs school are standoffish with me because they consider me 'posh'?

I used to have some quite posh friends when I was younger, and they didn't use the word 'common'.

They did, however, refer to us as commoners - literally, all of us!

It's totally obvious that you're not one of them. It's not saying this or doing that. It's everything. Everything you do, say, wear and think.

I just used to laugh really, what can you do? 😂

Anyone from any background can be common. Some older families consider the royal family to be a bit common sometimes (public affairs, bad behaviour becoming public knowledge, ostentatious displays of wealth, Victorian country house (Balmoral)).

What I consider common are:

• shouting and arguing in public (excluded from this is a well deserved response from continuous provocation caused by bad behaviour, such as stealing, cheating, etc.)
• insulting peoples' appearance personally, to their face, when you don't know them that well
• being ashamed of your background, a la Meghan Markle
• talking about money - how much you have and how much you paid for things. I also once met a man who told me he had a "detached house"
• looking down on people
• being on 'the make' (trying to make friends with people to benefit yourself)
• trying to prove yourself all noblesse oblige and getting it wrong and inviting tradesmen in for drinks when they are only trying to get their job done and back to their families
• driving those awful spanking new bright white Range Rovers with personalised numberplates, bought on finance
• spoiling your children and spending thousands on gifts for them
• not appreciating old things that are a bit used and tatty, but still functional
• tattoos
• being pushy
• a lot of this is to about being comfortable enough in your own skin and environment so as to not to have to denigrate others to make yourself feel better

Theres a fair few women who have married into money who are actually quite common. One of them crashed into my car recently and tried to evade liability. She actually got out of the car and said "Who on earth are you?" The answer was "a local landowner, who are you?" (she lived in a big house in the country). I ended up telling her she was badly brought up and only half educated and reminded me of a juvenile delinquent. She ended up paying up for the damage. But she was definitely common, although she probably considers herself posh. And she drove the wrong car - a BMW.

But if you really want to experience common, join Plenty of Fish, even for a night, and find out just how many men cannot spell or punctuate, or be polite, or courteous. It really is an eye opener. Strangely enough, many of them are single or at least pretending to be...

My mum always told me that nose rings and eating whilst walking along were common... I have had a nose piercing in the past but I still hesitate to walk along eating in case she sees me! 😅 If I had to define common it would be wearing PJ's on the school run or to the shop and smoking / drinking in the front garden....

Stacking plates in a restaurant when you don't work there !