What is a chav??

[tex111]

I've heard this term used a few times recently and I believe it refers to a person but I haven't been able to work out exactly what kind of person. Is this new or just a British term I haven't come across before?

In the North West Chav means those that wear excessive gold, burberry and drive cars which you hear before you see. Either because of the wide exhaust or the music being played so loud that you only hear the base as it pounds through your chest. With the purple lights dancing underneath the car and speaking a language that only other Chav's understand.

Just scaring my boss - he thinks he is very safe living in Hampstead and I live in a place akin to harlem - crime rates for his postcode are actually twice mine and he is thinking of moving to Ken & Chelsea where they are still far worse than mine - for some reason he thinks the further into London he lives the safer he is????

I live in the northwest and have bought a Burberry shirt for DS(well 75% off in the sale, couldn't resist) does that mean I have doomed him to being a chav

Well here, West Lothian, a "ned" also has the accomplishment of being usually the second generation to find living off benefits to be a career rather than a stop gap. They know every scam going to get the kind of money the rest of us muppets actually work for. Still, I would rather that than be one of them.

(Apparently they say they lost their giro cheque and are given another, cashing both. When I was in the local job centre once I overheard one lad tell another that if he said he had found a job it would mean they wouldn't send him on some job finding course. Then he could say the job hadn't happened. Lovely.)

By the by, I am a housing association tenant, and I know there are a few other mumsnetters in that position. So these chavs, neds, whatever may mostly come from estates but it doesn't make all people on estates neds. And I have never heard it used for gypsies.

For more information on 'neds' have a look at this
For something particularly amusing, click on 'Toys' and watch the movie clip of the ned on his bike.

No-one else heard the word didecoy?

I remember didecoy from the 70s when there was a TV prog about a girl with that title. think it might have been based on a Rumer Godden book? Quite good as a I recall......

"The diddakoi" was a book by Rumer Godden which was serialised on TV in the 1970s as "Kizzy". I just looked on Amazon and it seems to have been retitled "Gipsy girl".

I had never heard the word "chav" until I saw it referring to one of the Big Brother contestants recently.

I remeber 'Didecoy' but we always say 'pikeys' now. My DH is from NCL and had never heard the word 'pikey' until he moved 'down south' because you don't get many travellers up North!

'chav'. A person of working class origin, generally poorly educated, often very casually dressed in sportswear. Derog'

I've just copied this from the website 'dictionary of slang':

www.peevish.co.uk/slang/c.htm

Paula 71 - this is what it has under 'ned':

'ned'. A person of low morality and intelligence, whose poverty often leads them into crime. Derog. [Orig. Scottish]

tex111 - now you can learn ALL the slang words

tabitha - PMSL

My dh calls all teenagers with pointy-up caps (peak of cap pointing up towards the sky, usually whilst driving) 'pikeys' or 'diddies', although the latter are usually travellers.

I had never heard of 'chav' though.

Tabitha, I had seen that site before and that particular clip is a real dignity stripper for the ned (and teeth stripper by the looks of it!) Ouch or as they say ohya!

Teabag, the low morality bit is very true, it is how we are distinguishing who is who in this road. One of my neighbours said she calls those of us who are not neds "normals." We sit and gossip in amazement at what they get away with!

Hi CD, just caught up with this thread and saw your message to me. Which thread of yours are you refferring to?

I am off work so have very limited web access at the mo!

Hi northerner, it was just one saying that I was staying in your home town, am up here again today but off home now to London! Will contact you if I'm coming up again!