What are the main identifiers of those who describe themselves as lower middle classes?

[Rosehip10]

As distinct from middle/upper middle.

Full Tatler article
www.tatler.com/article/sorry-what-pardon-etiquette

Class is about more than your education, more than your job and more than your wealth.

You don't move through the different with a change of job or an increase/decrease in wealth, Alun Sugar and Duncan Bannatyne for example, will always be working class and the queen could get a job in the local factory and she wouldn't become working class..

I want class to not matter and not make a difference but it does play a big part in how society is structured. When people say they don't see class and it doesn't define you, it reminds me of when people say they don't see sex or race and that it doesn't matter. It does matter to the people on the shitty end of the stick, it matters to people who have had their childhood and lives shaped by racism and sexism, and been given different opportunities from childhood.
Thes often threads with sneering undertones to lower classes on here. I could go look and I don't think it would take me long to find such posts, election results brought a lot of those people out and they didn't hide their hatred at the working classes for how they voted, "thick cunts up north" etc as well as wishing disability on the working classes children to teach them a lesson, suggesting those who don't have a degree have the right to vote removed.

There's threads on here with replies showing people do look down their nose on the lower classes regularly. Baby names section has people not wanting to give their children a name that sounds like they may come from a council estate, Why would that be if class doesn't matter and isn't a thing?

"Girl’s schools have their own hierarchy Roedean, Benenden, CLC, Wycombe Abbey etc."
Yes, and they all refer to themselves as Independent or private.

“ I suppose Tallboy thinks I'm not worth speaking to, just because he's been to a public school and I haven't.”
“Public school,” said Mr. Bredon, “first I've heard of it. What public school?”
“He was at Dumbleton,” said Mr. Smayle, “but what I say is, I went to a Council School and I'm not ashamed of it.”
“Where's Dumbleton?” demanded Ingleby. “I shouldn't worry, Smayle. Dumbleton isn't a public school, within the meaning of the act.”
“Isn't it?” said Mr. Smayle, hopefully. “Well, you and Mr. Bredon have had college educations, so you know all about it. What schools do you call public schools?”
“Eton,” said Mr. Bredon, promptly, “—and Harrow,” he added, magnanimously, for he was an Eton man.
“Rugby,” suggested Mr. Ingleby.
“No, no,” protested Bredon, “that's a railway junction.”
Ingleby delivered a brisk left-hander to Bredon's jaw, which the latter parried neatly.
“And I've heard,” Bredon went on, “that there's a decentish sort of place at Winchester, if you're not too particular.”
“I once met a man who'd been to Marlborough,” suggested Ingleby.
“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Bredon. “They get a terrible set of hearty roughs down there. You can't be too careful of your associates, Ingleby.”

DitherAndDelay I couldn't agree more.

This thread is awful all the 'who'd actually identify as LMC? lol' posts just shows it, and as for sighting Jilly Cooper as the expert on Class? really?

That's like a man telling you how a woman thinks.

Fascinating

This quiz might help:

inews.co.uk/light-relief/quizzes/social-class-personality-test-quiz-511483

And according to the Great British class calculator I'm in the technical middle class ('technical' relating to science/research).

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

"Theindependent schoolstrade body, the Independent Schools Information Service, prefers to define public schools as a long-established, student-selective, fee-charging independentsecondary schoolthat caters primarily for children aged between 11 or 13 and 18, and whose head teacher is a member of theHeadmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference(HMC).[3]The 'public' name refers to the schools' origins as schools open to any public citizen who could afford to pay the fees; they are notfunded from public taxes. It is usually applied to describe the 215 independent (and mainly boys') secondary schools belonging to the HMC, although it can also be used to describe the 230 girls' senior schools belonging to theGirls' Schools Association."

Public schools are generally the independent schools that are commonly known by the general public and generally consider themselves a cut above the general private schools. Schools such as Eton, Rugby, Marlborough, St Paul's, Malvern, etc are examples of what are known as public schools. Yes, elitist in all aspects. They are not an older way of referring to private schools and place great emphasis on networking across the Old Boys/Girls Network as a means of gaining employment and influence. Just look how many Old Etonians and other public school former pupils there are in the Tory cabinets!

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince I think teaching puts you in middle middle?

I don’t think you can pigeon hole just based on a job though??I’m a teacher (part time) but I live in a detached house (new build) on 2 acres with its own woods. My dc have trust funds, but I say words like couch (not settee!)
My dc wear a mix of Boden and primark...I don’t know what we are to be honest 🤣🤣🤣 couldn’t give a shite!!

They say ‘pardon’, toilet’, ‘settee’, lounge’, ‘serviette’. The idea of being working class horrifies them.

I'm LMC and don't say any of those. I eat supper - light evening meal eaten 7 p.m.
Being working class doesn't horrify me. I'm not working class and couldn't be if I tried.
Couldn't really give a shit if what I am bothers anyone else.

I also went to private school so that’s REALLY confusing!! 🤣🤣

Quiz says I'm a posho

I think the middle classes tend to be more unpleasant and obnoxious. Probably due their self entitlement and feeling superior. For example, my dm lives in a house near a very good primary school which has obviously attracted quite a few of the middle classes, as well as local working class. She has trouble with cars parking across her drive and every time guaranteed it tends to be the ones in their rather large 4 x 4s driven by people with very posh accents who will actually be very rude if my dm politely asks them to move. On the other hand, the working classes in their little 5 year old ford fiestas tend to park far more considerately. Just an observation that other people in the locality have also noticed.

In the first quiz wraithberry posted, I come out as upper middle. In the second one I'm established middle. I'd have guessed at lower middle. We most definitely don't have the income or lifestyle of upper middle.

My 5yo has been taught at nursery to say "pardon" and I hate it. I'm definitely in the "what" camp. Apparently this means I'm vair posh.

According to the quiz I’m “upper middle class”

Well since becoming established middle class, courtesy of the 5 question British class calculator that I took ten minutes ago, I've started to kick puppies so that must be true livelovebehappy.

I’m UMC on one and Elite on the other.

I would say MMC

@Grapefruits i don't work through disability yet have plenty of money. Where do you put me?

Hard work and aspiration.

Livelovebehappy, I'm glad you pointed it out to me. I might have gone about my daily life not realising that I was entitled and superior.
I will kick the neighbour's puppy next time I see it, and park across their drive in future. See you Boxing Day at the Hunt.

I'd never say toilet or pardon - but I haven't any money. I'm sure as hell not upper-middle!

This is a coincidence. This morning I watched a tribute programme to the actor Albert Finney who died this year at 82. There was an excerpt from an interview he gave just after he became a star in Saturday Night, Sunday Morning in 1960.

I was surprised to hear him describe himself as lower middle class - I hadn't heard that since I read that bloody dreadful snobby Jilly Cooper Class book when it came out in the Seventies.

He said it completely matter-of-factly and without embarrassment, and I thought, 'Yes, you probably are.' Son of a bookie - he was careful to point out that his father earned a good living, but didn't own a yacht - went to grammar school. RADA had ironed out his Salford accent, but you could still hear traces of it.

He was a bloody fantastic actor and came over as someone completely comfortable in his own lower middle class skin.

@FeigningHorror I say 'toilet' and 'settee' and I'm as working class as they come. I think it depends on which part of the country you're from and the various colloquialisms that are used in that part of the country. To use different words to those which you are used to and grew up with solely to try and come across as more posh than you are would be a indicator of someone trying to identify with a different class as they actually are.

Established middles class on the other 🤔

@23MrOnionsBumperRoller if you have enough capital to generate an income you can live off well forever without working and pass on to your heirs then you are rich.

If your money is sufficient but from insurances or pensions you earned whilst working that will pay out only for your life time you are in the middle I would say.

I don't think disability has anything to do with social class except that if you don't have money or insurance it's a common reason sadly for people to fall into poverty.