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 🤣

About 12 years ago I was in a relatively new job, where I sat directly opposite the head of department - who was actually a very nice man, but had very little self-awareness around the fact that he earned four or five times as much as some of us. One day one of the buyers gave me a bottle of Bollinger that he’d received as a sweetener from a supplier (he was a Muslim, so didn't drink). Big boss casually says, ‘Hmm, I don’t really rate Bollinger. It’s like birthday champagne.’ My manager and I exchanged quite a loaded glance at that one…

I ran into a former classmate a few years after we’d left school and she’d waxed lyrical about how ‘I’m with Reebok now’. She made it sound like she was their Head of Marketing or something. I knew for a fact that she worked in her auntie’s trainer shop in Tamworth

Only heard this one second-hand, but a uni friend went to the US with some other people we knew from uni, including this very well-heeled girl who really struggled to understand that the others couldn’t just get their parents to foot the bill for the trip. Apparently when they got on the plane, she looked as if she was being made to walk the green mile and said, ‘I can’t believe we’re turning right’ (as in not left for first class).

Another airport one… my parents were at the baggage claim when a very loud woman kept shouting, ‘Toby, I can’t see my Louis Vuitton! Can you see my Louis Vuitton? I’ll be furious if anything’s happened to my Louis Vuitton’. According to my mother, the effect of her designer luggage was somewhat spoiled by the fact that she was a dead ringer for Kat Slater

Many years ago we met up with my cousin and her new BF. They had placed their very new and expensive mobile phone in the middle of the table. They kept rearranging it so that everyone around the table could look at it. They clearly thought we working class yobs should be impressed with their expensive purchase. Ten minutes into this mobile phone display my DH and his friend came and joined us. His friend (and work colleague) then dumped his phone on the table and said he to everyone. His phone was the more expensive model of the phone we had been supposed to be worshipping. Cousins BF huffily picks up his phone and mutters something under his breath. I could not stop laughing about it all night much to my DH's and his friends confusion.

Silver-service birthday party for a 10-year-old at a vineyard function centre. Think sausage rolls on silver platters for the kids and endless top-label wine for the parents (parents owned the vineyard/function centre/and most of the surrounding vineyards too.)

14 year old in a class at a posh school in England genuinely saying 'the Country is not the same since they gave the Plebs the vote'
He wouldn't say that now, but he replies on the votes of plebs to keep him in his job.

When DH and I were in a (nice, but not exactly exclusive) pub for dinner earlier this year when the DM at the next table tried to persuade her DS to order something different from his original choice on the menu:

"Oh, no. Don't have the lobster, darling. That's not your sort of Lobster. We'll have proper lobster in Cornwall next week."

My jnlaws call hummus, crisps and olives nibbles. They generally have nibbles with Prosecco which they call bubbles. Makes my skin crawl and my eyes itch.

When a friend got married she sent out the usual poem type things requesting money because her and the groom were ‘extending one of their Richmond properties’. They only had one house.

Little guests are arriving for son's 10th birthday celebration; all have been warned to wear old clothes AND bring a complete change, because we are going on a river hike. IN the river, followed by cooking camp dinner on an open fire.

The scruffy gang are kept waiting for the last to arrive; whose Dad roars sportscar into our drive to a gravel -scattering show-off halt. and drawls " Sorry we're late; we set off in the Jag but the dog was sick on the back seat so I had to turn back and come in the Porsche instead."

Child gets out wearing the last word in top to toe designer labels, I ask if he has brought some old togs to change into to get messy and Dad says " These ARE his oldest clothes".

@DappyApple

Someone I knew who was in the same circles as me at the time. Her surname was Butcher.

Someone referred to her full name, she loudly declared that it was pronounced “ Bouché “ and won’t simply won’t answer to Butcher.
Not realising I had been at the same school, at the same time as her and her brother (different year groups) and knew I also knew her mother….the family name was indeed, Butcher!

Just like dear Mrs Bucket, aka Bouquet!

Sorry yes, the pretension was pronunciation-related. It came across very try-hard to be back home sporting a new Canadian accent when my actual accent is an Australian drawl

I'm not sure that is pretentious though - some people pick up accents much more quickly than others.

And if you have spent the summer in France speaking nothing but French you might well get a bit confused when you come back. I lived in Germany in the 90s and there are still words and expressions that come to me more easily in German than English. Nothing to do with being pretentious.

@ClareBlue

14 year old in a class at a posh school in England genuinely saying 'the Country is not the same since they gave the Plebs the vote' He wouldn't say that now, but he replies on the votes of plebs to keep him in his job.

Was that Boris?

Or JRM?

Woman at work years ago. Her surname was Rowbottom but insisted it was pronounced Row-botham (said in a very posh tone too).

I used to work with a manchild of about 45 who dressed like a teenager, spoke like a particularly streetwise rap artist and most amusingly of all carried a skateboard at all times. So, get out of the car, grab skateboard from the the back seat, tuck under arm, WALK, into the building. In the 3 years I worked with him I saw that bloody skateboard every day, but I never once saw him use it. Nobody did.
People used to fawn over him though, drove me crazy because he really was a dick.
The thing I never understood was his wife - a by all accounts brilliant lawyer and very normal women. Opposites really do attract.

@DaveCoaches

I don’t know if this classes as pretentious or just snobby, but overheard a woman bragging that she knew all the quiz answers about books but none of the ones about TOWIE and reality TV - fair enough but she was really sneery about it.

To be fair, bragging is bad, but it is something to be proud of if you avoid worthless (at best) and harmful (at worst) "culture" like (the vast majority of) reality TV. It is something to be proud of if read a fair bit.

Yeah, maybe a bit snobby, but on the other hand we are rapidly going to the shitter in this country as a result of people being proud of their ignorance so I'll forgive her.

The bragging is the issue

When I started Uni back in the 90s there was a boy in halls who looked white but dressed as if he was Indian - while long shirt with trousers.
I was speaking to him at a party and (subtly) tried to quiz him on his background etc.
Apparently he was from Nottingham but just got used to dressing like that when he was on his gap year helping Mother Theresa treat Lepers in the slums of Calcutta.
Might even have been true

My parents hosted a family party for my granny’s 80th birthday. My aunt brought the birthday cake and a few table decorations, but my parents did everything else.

During the party, my aunt stood up in our living room (holding cue cards) and made a speech thanking everyone for coming, and also giving special thanks to my mum for providing the food

The stories about accents remind me of the "Glasgow Uni Accent".

https://m.facebook.com/TheTabGlasgow/videos/1819020744798983/

This is how my two posh Glaswegian cousins talk. My brother affectionately refers to them as "the West End W@nkers"

I worked with a woman who always appeared superior. She talked about her property and her land. One day she told me that she had tree surgeons tidying up the trees on her land. She lived near a very posh village so I took this at face value.
She was off sick and my boss decided to drop in her pay slip. She lived in one of the roughest roads in a two bed terraced social housing property which was in a poor state of repair. He was shocked. Sad though that she had to pretend.

@SoosanCarter

When I was at a Scottish University aeons ago, there was a chap who offered two different kinds of sherry to his visitors, complete with silver tray and sherry glasses. It was the hall of residence later popular with Kate and William.

I thought I was posh having a bottle of Ribena.

At my Uni halls of residence ( in a castle), we were invited for a pre dinner sherry with the Dean once a term. We had to wear a graduation type gown for dinner apart from casual fridays and were served dinner silver service style. Didn't think too much of it then but looking back, cringeworthingly pretentious 🤣

I use clear washing up liquid (Exocet decanted into a smaller bottle, or the ‘sensitive’ options) and take the label off the bottle to go with my new (aspiring) minimalist kitchen.

Is that bad?

Worked for the 'posh' supermarket for a while after taking early retirement from teaching. One of the joys of being on the shop floor was watching the 'performance parenting ' and competitive one upmanship of mums and dads. One Saturday I was filling the shelves. To the side of me was a woman with 2 children , talking to an older couple they weren't related to. She went on and on about the sporting, musical,educational wonder of her two mini geniuses. I thought I should probably make a mental note to watch out for them in the Olympics in 10 years time. Whilst she was chatting she was sending the children off to get foccacia, olives ( the organic ones dahling) and hummus ; all the usual twattery. Eventually the older couple moved on and the youngest child turned to his mum ,let out a massive sigh and said " So NOW can we go to McDonald's ". Chuckled to myself that her vision of her perfect organic, Boden wearing lifestyle was actually the smoke and mirrors we all thought it was.

Er Ecover, not Exocet!

@LegoSteppingStones

HighlandCowbag "I say it a lot to teenage dd who is adamant we are middle class when we are actually working class. Apparently getting mealdeals from M and S, having 2 fat ponies and me being at uni means we are. We definitely aren't"

@HighlandCowbag
You're definitely not working class!

Working class people do shop at M&S, own ponies and go to uni, you know. They are allowed.

@SoosanCarter @LadyCarolineDester DS2 stayed in that hall of residence at St Andrews for two years and would have had a nicer time if there had been more pretentious but "genteel" students on his floor but as it was he was surrounded by mostly noisy American boys who went a bit mad on the legal drinking at 18 thing. And kept vomming all over the shared bathroom.
We did see a girl turn up wheeling a large Louis Vuitton trunk as we manhandled DS2s possessions in blue IKEA bags on drop off day though.

Had a customer give their address as being in "Royal Berkshire", had to fight very hard not to smirk.