Not to like being called posh?

[Stillwearinggloves]

What point is a person trying to make by saying someone else is posh? This comment has been made to me or about me a few times recently by so-called friends. AIBU to think it’s rude and not to like being singled out in this way?

But why? I genuinely don’t understand, it’s like taking offence because someone comments on you being a Liverpudlian or builder or doctor.

It’s not, really. It’s expressing an implicit sense of where the person being addressed sits in the class structure in relation to the person speaking. ‘You’re posh’ means ‘I think you’re above me, and I’m pointing it out for some reason’. Similarly, ‘You’re a chav/prole/common’ means ‘I look down on you from my position, and I’m not going to hide it’. ‘You’re a Liverpudlian/builder/doctor’ doesn’t tell us anything about what the person saying this thinks about that fact.

What do people intend when they call someone posh? I think they’re highlighting that you’re different and privileged, not necessarily moneyed, although that may be an element too.
I think there may be some resentment toward ‘posh’ people and the feeling that they don’t deserve the benefits they’ve been bestowed eg fine education, extra curriculars, resulting accents - things that likely do smooth the way to success in life.
Calling people posh may be the passive aggressive expression of this resentment.

So it's a sort of subtle form of jealousy? Of perceived privilege due to presentation rather than the possible reality of circumstance.

Yes, exactly. People can get it completely wrong. One of DH’s nasty uncles once called me ‘posh’ in a particularly jeering, unpleasant way when he was giving me a lift home. Imagine his surprise when he saw my humble council house family home, and I introduced him to my binman dad. What I imagine he meant is ‘You’re educated, and I don’t like educated, confident women who don’t defer to me’.

@MistressoftheDarkSide Jealousy that you unfairly have something that they don’t - education, exposure, experiences, connections, skills and even (but not necessarily) money.

A parent came in to object about my telling her cherub not to swear, she yelled at me You're trouble is, you're posh! to which my reply as I walked away was Thank you, you're very kind.

And if the name caller knows someone has none of these attributes then they’re just using the label to say that someone is pretentious which is mean if it’s a friend.

It's not remotely similar. Calling someone a Liverpudlian is a simple statement of fact (assuming they are one!). There's no value judgment, implied or otherwise.

Calling someone posh is a subjective opinion - usually a pejorative one. As we've seen on this thread there's no agreement as to what posh means, it varies from person to person, so it's pretty meaningless as a descriptor.

Araminta?

Yeah. I have been called posh (in particular, have been mercilessly teased for being posh in a Sarf London job, a while ago.)

However, my attitude is, I sound posh but I'm not actually posh. I did the 11+ and got a scholarship to a private GPDST girls' school. I learned to speak posh as a defence mechanism. But I never had a pony, or went skiing, or had parents who took cruises to Keenya.

Darling Minty, what would we do without her?

Posh means rich according to the person saying it.

Thanks very much for all your comments. They’ve been really helpful to me even though no one really thought the same thing was behind being given the label. I’ll let you know what happens when I raise the issue.

All the super posh I know have nicknames like Bunny or Dizzy

Of course, nobody who IS posh would dream of using the word. Very non-U.

Non U is a horrible othering term.