After following and commenting on the school holiday thread i noticed the good old term of "middle class" starting to be aired, it happens on a good percentage of threads whether they're relating to anything from your next bike purchase through to where you buy your fruit and veg from. Is there a distinct hatred of the "middle classes," are there actually a lot of people on here who are middle class but don't realise it?
I'm confused, do you need a certain income/education/job to be in the gang?
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 😥
"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.
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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
