[Closed] Define "middle class" for me please.

Shopping in Waitrose innit?

You take Marks and Spencers' shopping bags to use at Aldi.

Not upper or lower class, but somewhere in "the middle", would be my guess.

If you have to ask, then you aren't 😆

it's all total bollox for people that need everything in order with labels on.

Someone who earns more than you

If you have to ask, then you are[s]n't[/s]

If you're properly upper class or working class you know it.

voting con-servative,getting made redundant,complaining about dole scroungers, and then complaining you cant get any dole.

I think Melvyn Bragg is doing a series on the subject in the not too distant future..
hopefully that should clear things up once and for all..

It's a term a lot of people use in a derogatory way to somehow suggest that someone else's lifestyle choices (which often the person making the comment can't afford or doesn't have the imagination / confidence to make for themselves) are self centered and shallow.

Usually used after one poster has expressed a personal opinion or preferance to deride that person by making general sweeping and unsubstantiated attacks on all people not percieved by the orginal poster to be the same as them.

According to Wikipedia

The term middle class implies those people who typically have had a good education, own a family house, and hold a managerial or professional post.

Upper-class wannabe

If you're properly upper class or working class you know it.

That's true that is. I know my place Stoner.

Middle class is what you call yourself if you think working class sounds a bit flat cap and whippet. If you have to get out of bed in the morning, you are working class!

It's almost used as an insult on some posts, surely it's not a bad thing?

You read the Guardian.

Calling the unemployed cider drinking fag smoking scroungers who think there entitled to everything for nothing, then complaining when you lose the child tax credits.

Isn't there different measures that determine where you fit in? Does it matter?

Born on a council estate, father was a tradesman, mam was a housewife.

I served a 4 year apprenticeship, got a trade, trained as a gas man, then eventually became a manager.

Wife had a similar back ground, went to Durham Uni and became a teacher.

So, certainly born working class, followed the working class ethic, got a trade and all the rest. Sure we meet the middle class criteria now. Don't really care either way though.

I think it does matter, not to me personally, but because class is still an issue.

It's almost used as an insult on some posts, surely it's not a bad thing?

And you think the common people are never insulted on here ?

I think insulting middle class people is fair game.

Whingeing arrogant insecure pretentious judgmental middle class people.

😀

You get out of the bath for a piss

Or have a signature dish

Can't recall a post where someone's put "you and your working class ways" etc.

Toffs own everything; Peasants work.

Middle class are the well-off Peasants who think money entitles them to classify themselves [u]better[/u] than the rest of the Peasants. They are despised equally by Toffs and Peasants. It's all terribly English.

The Two Ronnies had it.

Edit: 😀 [I'm not taking this seriously]

Buzz has nailed it...

spot on.

It's almost used as an insult on some posts, surely it's not a bad thing?

I think it's used an insult when referring to stereotypical, smug, pretentious, un self-aware middle-class tossers.

I'm very middle class but still bandy the term around as an insult 🙂

It's funny though how most people these days are desperate to pretend they are working class heroes, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I use it as shorthand to describe a certain attitude of entitlement; the schoolkids and holidays thread is a great example.

Define "middle class" for me please.

Middle class problem. 😉

Mark Thomas: Simple test. If you say to someone "mahna mahna" and they go "doo dooooo doo doo dooo", they're middle class.

Last time this came up there were dozens of different definitions suggested and not one was acceptable to more than a handful of people. Almost any definition will enrage someone because it'd mean they're middle class when they vehemently claim they're not or because it excludes them when they think they've earned their position in the middle classes.

You'll never get a definitive answer.

The middle class is bigger than ever - though so is the under class. Upper class and working class shrinking over time.

So we divide middle class into lower middle, middle middle and upper middle. Those from a working class background are unlikely to get beyond lower middle no matter how much designer gear they wear, and those from an upper class background are stuck in upper middle no matter how many trees they try to stop being cut down when fighting the system. Language gives it away instantly.

Northwind: A Mahna-mahna is a device used by plumbers to check pressure drop in gas systems...that must make you Working Class??
Sorry..old plumbing joke 😥

Wannabe middle class bike ad

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/3368581.htm

"middle class" is an insult hurled by self-hating middle class people who will typically claim loudly to be working class 😉

"middle class" is an insult hurled by self-hating middle class people who will typically claim loudly to be working class.

This... ish.

Some "world class" spelling in that ad!

Middle Class = You don't live in a council house, but you ain't got a butler.

SB

You read the Guardian.

I do the Guardian (quick) crossword - do I qualify 😀

I usually think 'biscuit game' when I hear people banging on about middle class angst.

Middle Class: someone who spends the evening reading and posting commentaries about implied standing in a hypothetical social hierarchy, on a mountain bike forum, probably from a smartphone.

You read the Guardian.

Whilst I accept that I'm an exception I did wonder just how true that is. Specially as I knew that many Sun readers are in fact middle-class/professional types. Something which I became aware of many years ago whilst working on a site in Bethnal Green - everyday I would take the East Croydon to London Bridge train and I was quite frankly stunned by the amount of City wallahs on the train carrying a copy of the Sun.

So I checked. And yes, many Sun readers are middle-class/professional types. Almost 40%, an even higher figure than I expected. But Guardian readers are [i]overwhelmingly[/i] middle-class, in fact even more so than Times - only about 10% are working-class. More than twice as many professional types read the Star than the Guardian has in working-class readers. Interesting.

[img] [/img]

That must be where I'm going wrong as I've never thought that city wallah's were Middle class/ professional types. 😉

It's usually the **** who's laid on the floor clutching his face down our local

Middle Class = You don't live in a council house, but you ain't got a butler.

I live in a council house, but I'm definitely middle class.

You listen to [url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_fourfm ]Radio4[/url].

You're middle class if you have time to argue about what it is.

The lower classes are too busy working and the upper classes are too busy being rich.

So by being a proffessional type (whatever one of those are) are you now classed as middle class!?

[i]If you have to get out of bed in the morning, you are working class! [/i]
this, only I would specify that you're getting out of bed *to go to work*. I'm sure the middle and upper classes get out of bed for a slash at some point before noon.

So by being a professional type (whatever one of those are) are you now classed as middle class!?

nah, that's the political con, fooling the masses into believing they are middle class because they work in an office, have a degree in social studies and maybe even have manager in their job title. Then the politicians can make speeches about the virtues of middle England and the hard working middle classes and the fools lap it up like mindless drones, believing they are special, so they vote according to the fantasy instead of the reality and we all lose.

Middle class = you just have to take your darling little children out of school during term time to give them that special educational skiing holiday that [s]you want[/s] they'll appreciate for the rest of eternity. oh, and it's the only way we can afford a holiday that competes with our neighbours, who actually have money whilst we're just pretending we're well-off.

Middle class, actually giving a sh.t what class you are.

...you woudlnt drive a Range Rover or Audi A4

Middle class, actually giving a sh.t what class you are.

I thought that was working class? Or is it people whose parents / grandparents were working class and who are now themselves middle class? It's so complicated!

Uselesshippy, going back to the OP then STW goes against your comments since the term is generally used In a lazy and derogatory manner in much the same way as Daily Wail or Guardian readers is. In that case it seems that the only people who really care are those that aren't middle class. Others simply don't make the comment.

Interesting newspaper stats but ernie remember the upper and middle classes like their tittle tattle as much as the working classes. My first boss read the FT for work, the Racing Post for sport (in the U sense!!!!) and The Sun for his daily 10:00 ablutions! Kept him regular and happy!

Whether middle class is a positive or negative view depends on your perspective:

"the most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control..." Aristotle or

"the enemy of society is middle class" Orson Wells

crispo - Member

So by being a proffessional type (whatever one of those are) are you now classed as middle class!?

MSP - Member

So by being a professional type (whatever one of those are) are you now classed as middle class!?

nah, that's the political con, fooling the masses into believing they are middle class because they work in an office, have a degree in social studies and maybe even have manager in their job title. Then the politicians can make speeches about the virtues of middle England and the hard working middle classes and the fools lap it up like mindless drones, believing they are special, so they vote according to the fantasy instead of the reality and we all lose.

i'm pretty sure that correcting someone's spelling when you quote them makes you middle class.

😉

[i]remember the upper and middle classes like their tittle tattle as much as the working classes[/i]
Is it liking tittle tattle, or more a case of 'know your enemy'?

havent read any of the above but it wa sposte don here a while back whenit came up and it made me smile.

"middle class shower before work - working class shower after work - "

respond to Sugdenir

'I do the Guardian (quick) crossword - do I qualify '

Your only tinkering in middle class, the cryptic is when you know you've made it! (or you have too much time on your hands)

Look down on the oiks and aspire to the toffs.

This morning, I overheard a work colleague complaining about the price of integrated microwaves. That seems as good a definition as any.

London is jammed full of downwardly mobile toffs. People who went to boarding schools but didnt do anything with it. Now finding they are competing for jobs with thrusting oiks and the rest of the planet who want to live here......people who cant understand that British affectation of not being seen to try too hard.

I have never ever met anyone who described themselves as upper-class.

[i]thrusting oiks[/i]
[shudder]

Can I be the first to mention Thatcher?

Under her lot the situation changed to one where it is more a case of an underclass, very little if any working class and then middle and upper. i.e. pretty much everyone is middle class nowadays.

Northwind: Mark Thomas: Simple test. If you say to someone "mahna mahna" and they go "doo dooooo doo doo dooo", they're middle class.

How does knowing the tune to a Muppets song make you middle class? [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah_N%C3%A0_Mah_N%C3%A0 ]Wikipedia[/url] hasn't cleared it up for me in the slightest

Middle class? Me, I am the definition.

I own a small house with an oppressive mortgage. I am in management and my other half is a teacher. I shop at Aldi and Waitrose. I spend time in a pub drinking micro brewery ale talking about car fuel economy and interest rates.

Well in my school middle class was called posh and consisted of having butter instead of marge and coffee instead of tea . Any family that cut their sliced bread in triangles was well middle class .

Since i left school and it's mindless inverse snobbery I've not come across any real logical hostility to the concept of being middle class .

it's normally used as an insult by those who have lost the debate and so seek to win by suggesting that those who don't agree with them don't live in the gritty real world .

To be honest if you are on this forum you are middle class .

Middle class?

Anyone who use the term, define.

Its quite simple. Do you pay more for your vegetables because they still have mud on?

Can you watch more than a microsecond of Hugh Fearnley-****ingstall without kicking your telly off the wall and booting it down the road?

What makes you middle class? Caring about what class you are.

In my experience the middle classes, upon entering another's house, would never ask if their shoes are required to be removed and merely walk all over your freshly cleaned floor/carpet with complete indifference...

To be honest if you are on this forum you are middle class .

Yep. True dat.

Except possibly mcmoonter with his acres of land and all day to spend cutting wood or making wood sheds. I suspect he may be properly posh. 😀

If you wouldn't wear supermarket jeans and eat your fish and chips of a plate, you're middle class.

i'm pretty sure that correcting someone's spelling when you quote them makes you middle class.

Lol! Actually, you would leave the error and accompany the quote with [sic] to explain that it's not your error.

You're middle class when you start looking down your nose at people with less money than you

joao3v16 - Member
You're middle class when you start looking down your nose at people with less money than you

chip chip chip chipppppppyyyyyyy!

[i]Its quite simple. Do you pay more for your vegetables because they still have mud on?[/i]

Again, genius 🙂

Oh, and the sketch with Messrs Cleese, Barker and Corbett was from The Frost Report, not the Two Ronnies.

> You're middle class when you start looking down your nose at people with less money than you

chip chip chip chipppppppyyyyyyy!

Aye!

(firmly middle class here. I look down on many people for many reasons, but money isn't one of them)