What is the most pretentious thing you've seen someone do?

[kinzarose]

Inspired by another thread. When I was at university there was an older lady who thought she was vair posh, was very keen to have her designer labels on display and loved name dropping brands into conversation. We had a group tutorial over lunch once, so we all ate together. This woman took a two foot (yes, literally) wooden salt and pepper mill out of her bag, stood up and started grinding pepper onto the shop bought sandwich she had with her. It was just the most pretentious thing ever, she was a "food snob" apparently 🤣

Back in the day, on a train journey with a work colleague who wasn't setting the conversational heather alight. I tried a brave gambit: 'so, do you like Oasis?'

And in all sincerity he answered 'I don't know, I've never met them'.

@LobsterNapkin

What's a Canadian "rr" and why is it pretentious? I really need to avoid using it if I ever get to travel to England again.

Yes, as a Canadian I am wondering this too I had no idea.

Me too!

@kinzarose

Inspired by another thread. When I was at university there was an older lady who thought she was vair posh, was very keen to have her designer labels on display and loved name dropping brands into conversation. We had a group tutorial over lunch once, so we all ate together. This woman took a two foot (yes, literally) wooden salt and pepper mill out of her bag, stood up and started grinding pepper onto the shop bought sandwich she had with her. It was just the most pretentious thing ever, she was a "food snob" apparently 🤣

How on earth can anyone claim to be so keen on food that they take their own s and p yet eats shop bought sandwiches! Or is that a pretentious comment?

Shopping with my Mother in Lidl
I whip out my Iceland bags, large Harrods bag for her
Oh how I laughed, she didn't speak to me for a week
Result

I was on scholarship at a small local independent.
The first time my friend's mum dropped her off at my fairly normal 3 bed terraced house in local town she remarked loudly in the hallway to my mum "we weren't always detached you know"
It was particularly hilarious since she was definitely in nouveau riche category and was the secretary who married the boss. My friend's dad was a very down to earth Yorkshireman who happened to be a successful solicitor with his own business.
She had definite delusions of grandeur 🤣😂

@Granllanog

DHs aunt used to tell everyone that her daughter lived in Windsor.........we helped her daughter move, the house was next door to Slough Fire Station ( a few miles from Windsor and the opposite side of the M4)..........we still joke about it everytime we pass the Slough / Windsor junction on the M4

A very desireable area in the North West is Worsley which in the 1970's reorganisation was 'moved' into Salford, not sure some people are over it even yet, Salford definitely isn't on their addresses if they can avoid it. At the same time other areas started to class themselves as Worsley when they were certainly not, it makes for some laughs.

One old school friend brags to everyone about how her oldest "got into Kings", insinuating that she's studying at Cambridge - when she's actually in London. Which is impressive, but not impressive enough for my old school friend - she's the sort to drop into conversation the fact that her daughters both went to the local private girls school... forgetting, perhaps, that we all know it has a reputation for churning out "gels" whose sole purpose in life seems to be marrying well and living off their husbands wealth rather than their own Her oldest is determined to forge a career in her own right, and openly rolls her eyes at her mother's pretentions (she also brags about how she spends "half the month" abroad - which yes; she does... but working, rather than relaxing! In fairness, my friend works incredibly hard for what she/her family has, and always has done; she just hates to be seen as "having" to do so).

It was excruciating, though, when another old school friend innocently suggested that their 18 year olds meet up as "both are at Cambridge". The first old friend looked like she'd swallowed her tongue, and swiftly changed the subject...

Ending a phone call to my own sister, I commented that we were having egg and chips for tea, which was probably everyone's favourite. She said it was their favourite too, but "here in Surrey you couldn't admit to that in public".

@Balonzette

My mum used to refer to her very expensive car as "The Lexus" and not just "the car" like everyone else.

Think (loudly in the supermarket), "DH, darling, I'll go ahead and start putting some of the shopping in the Lexus!"

"The other day, DH and I were out driving in the Lexus when we saw..."

"We'd better leave a little early so we can fill up the Lexus on the way."

Etc.

This sounds like the Mercedes woman on Friday night dinner

@BritWifeInUSA

Waiting at the London embassy for my immigrant visa interview before moving here and a woman sat next to me and started to make small talk. She had a very fake American accent. I didn’t comment on it at all (I knew she was wanting me to). So she casually dropped into conversation “oh I keep speaking like an American! I’m so sorry! My boyfriend lives in LA (like I’d be impressed by that shit hole) and so I have ended up speaking like this because I just spent a whole month living with him there”. I didn’t have the patience to argue with her that a month in LA is not “living in America”.

I’ve been with my American husband for over a decade and have lived in the US now for almost as long and my accent hasn’t changed.

She was devastated when my number was called and it started with an I (for immigrant). She was there for a non-immigrant visa interview.

In fairness, some people genuinely do pick up accents easily. I do and it's very embarrassing and I can't help it. Probably to do with moving around a lot as a child...I'd gone through 'Yorkshire, 'Geordie', 'Scottish' and 'London' before I was even eight years old. I remember when I moved yet again to start secondary, making a conscious decision that I wasn't going to lose my accent this time, and it lasted about a week. It's like I just reproduce whatever I hear around me - I don't have an original accent that 'sticks'. Have been called pretentious and fake many times and now as an adult have a bit of a mish mash of an accent which is also called pretentious and fake, as the Scottish bits of it sound vaguely mid Atlantic, and it always veers towards the accent of whoever I'm talking to. I just have to shrug because I know it's not on purpose.

The woman in the story though...yeah that doesn't make sense, really.

I am a lawyer who studied Latin for 7 years, and DH and I between us have 60 years' experience of working in an area of law where in camera hearings are common. We can't recall anyone, ever (judges and senior counsel included), using a pronunciation different from the usual English one. The barrister who made fun of you was clearly a complete idiot.

@Avarua

After living a year in Canada aged 23 I came home with a Canadian 'rr' Pretentious as fuck. Thankfully twenty years ago so people might have forgotten.

Not sure it's pretentious or simply an accent. There's an advert on at the moment, American I assume, 'all my meals are pre-prepared' which sets my teeth on edge with the very very long rr in prepared.

@jb7445

My best one is kind of anti-posh pretentiousness, if that makes sense? I went to a university that has a very very high proportion of privately educated students from well off families.

There was one girl who would constantly go on in a very loud voice about how she could only eat that week because she'd fished food out of the supermarket bins or had begged in the street.

Fine, but it turned out later she had a fancy car paid for by her parents, the nicest catered halls and a generous allowance which she spent mainly on dinners out, clubbing and drugs (all of this was kept secret).

Always reminded me of the Pulp song - she was literally playing at being 'common' and poor. She wasn't the only one either, just the most vocal

I had a friend who did this when she went to uni

Name their child Ptolemy

Went for a walk with a hippy, weed smoking, right on couple who knew my ex. They actually said 'We have chosen to remove the word 'No' from our conversations when we are around our child, we hope you don't mind joining us in that ethos today'. I laughed and thought they were joking, they were not. My ex went along with it! It is so hard to have a conversation that does not contain the word no I just didn't bother and kept getting dead eyes from the mum.

The walk, which should have took an hour, took 4 because their 3 year old kept running off, picking up dog shit, running towards the reservoir we were walking around etc. They were constantly stopping to 'talk through' this poor child's behaviour, instead of just saying 'No!' to him. Draining as fuck.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

I remember when a couple at work got engaged and a very pompous man swept in and said:

"Felicitations! Let's have a decco at the sparkler"

This one's my favourite. Pretentious bordering on eccentric, and really made me laugh!

A very dear friend of ours, despite his pretentions, was shown an engagement ring by a very excited newly-engaged colleague and his response was 'a cute little gem', which is now a family catchphrase. When William and Kate were showing off the ring three of us said 'a cute little gem' at the same time.

@Dibble135

My old boss used to speak about himself in the third person 🙄

Did you used to work for Prince Phillip?

I rent a house out in the town I live in (bought a house before I met DH and we kept it as a back-up plan if living together didn't work).

Had a call from my tenant at 9am on a Monday morning to explain that she wouldn't be able to pay this months rent as her car needed fixing (some sympathy) and it was urgent because she needed to drive her daughter to a bigger town half an hour away because she goes to a lovely independent faith-school there. It was inconvenient but you wouldn't want to send your children to the local primary schools. Said in a very sneery voice.

My daughters went to the primary 100 yards past that house at the end of her road. Lost all sympathy and told her to get the rent in my bank account by the end of the week.

There was a sales guy at my previous company, one of the most arrogant unpleasant people I have ever worked with, and he used to have his T-shirts tailored so they showed off his gym body.

I'm pretentious I guess.

*I remember when a couple at work got engaged and a very pompous man swept in and said:

"Felicitations! Let's have a decco at the sparkler"*

I was taught by my very proper Granda that one never congratulates a lady on an engagement, as that would imply that she'd worked for it. Félicitations was the "correct" answer.

@number87inthequeue

A woman who went to a lot of the same baby/toddler groups as me always referred to her house by the street name (as in 'Would you like to come over to Posh Street for coffee?). I was never sure whether this was done just to make sure we all knew she lived in the nicest part of town, or to hint that she had more than one home (she didn't), or possibly both.

She also referred to her car as 'The Audi' at all times- when her DC started school she would always instruct them to 'get in The Audi and put your seatbelts on'.

I once bumped in to her in the Aldi car park and she made a point of telling me she'd only parked there because it was such a nightmare parking outside [local organic produce shop]. I didn't tell her that I'd been on the phone in my car for the last 15 mins and had seen her coming out of Aldi with a trolley full!

If she's near stoke on Trent it might be the same 'Audi' women that kept me awake for a bloody hour.

@Mseddy you should have done that it would have been epic!