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 - MemberSo by being a proffessional type (whatever one of those are) are you now classed as middle class!?
MSP - MemberSo 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 youchip chip chip chipppppppyyyyyyy!
Aye!
(firmly middle class here. I look down on many people for many reasons, but money isn't one of them)
Oh, and the sketch with Messrs Cleese, Barker and Corbett was from The Frost Report, not the Two Ronnies.
Indeed it was.
In song - search youtube for middle class is magical
Middleclass is magical
A safe world free from strife
Let bad things happen to other folk
While you read Country Life
Buy an Aga
Wear a Monsoon dress
Get your food from M&S
Own an iPhone
Watch Bear Grylls
Take anti-depressant pills
Middleclass is magical
Drive a 4x4 to school
Keep three sorts of hummus in your fridge
Make over your downstairs loo
Learn to salsa
Ski in Verbier
Drink too much Chilean Chardonnay
Ignore the homeless
Don’t mind burkahs
Condesend to migrant workers
(WHISTLES TO TUNE)
When all the world is middleclass
They’ll be no poverty or starvation
Cos we’ll all grow our own mange tout
And Mylene Klass will rule the nation!
Because…
Middleclass is magical
Join us and see
You’re already half-way there
Cos you’re not watching ITV
Yes, middleclass is magical
What matters is what we wear
Let’s pay someone else to do the difficult jobs
While we work on our hair
Middleclass is magical, yeah!
Whether middle class is a positive or negative view depends on your perspective:
Why does it have to be a positive or negative thing ? There is nothing good or bad concerning whether you are working class, middle class, or upper class, it's just a fact, like whether you're tall or short.
"it's just a fact, like whether you're tall or short. " is it though ? I know I'm medium height and build and how that can be measured and agreed . I believe I'm middle class but i can make a good case for being working class . At school i was the posh boy because we used butter and drank coffee but in my last employment i was mocked as rough for coming from a terrace in a one time mining town that still had outside toilets in the yards (every one had indoor plumbing by the time i was born.)
The problem appears to be that for some reason middle class is still bandied about like it means something but no body can really define it in a way that differentiates from lower class .
My two working class mates are both financially better off than me have longer and more expensive holidays and one has better pension provision .
The problem appears to be that for some reason middle class is still bandied about like it means something but no body can really define it in a way that differentiates from lower class .
Oh come on, it's easy enough - you're just [i]making[/i] it difficult. A working-class person is a blue collar worker who has had basic level of education, is paid hourly/per shift for doing a manual job, which if he/she is a C2 is normally described as a trade. A middle-class person is typically a white collar worker, often with in a managerial position, who has qualified in further eduction, is salaried, and who's non-manual job is normally described as a profession.
That's the basics, but level of income and property ownership comes into it too - middle-classes tend to have higher levels of income and property ownerships, unsurprisingly.
Obviously it is not always clear-cut and the boundaries are often very blurred, specially when it comes to income, and in the last 30/40 years, property ownerships. But very often it is absolutely clear-cut. It certainly is in my case - blue collar hourly paid manual worker with a trade who received basic level of education. Plus I'm on an average industrial wage and don't own property, ie, extremely typical and very easily characterised.
I have to say it amuses me somewhat how some people appear to feel uncomfortable with the fact that social classes exist and deal with that problem by pretending that they don't. The "it's all outdated nonsense" "everyone is middle class now" stuff. Clearly social classes do exist - a binman and a judge do not belong to the same social class. And whilst boundaries might [i]sometimes[/i] be blurred, generally, by ticking boxes, a reasonable assessment can be made. I'm sure marketing people for example, can characterise people into their individual social classes without any real problem. As the people responsible for this undoubtedly did :
[img] 
[/img]
Obviously for ease they have grouped everyone into either ABC1 or C2DE, but those further strata within working-classes/middle-classes/upper-classes exist precisely to help deal with blurred boundaries.
Oh come on, it's easy enough - you're just making it difficult. A working-class person is a blue collar worker who [b]has had basic level of education[/b], is often paid hourly/per shift for doing a manual job which if he/she is a C2 is normally described as a trade.
I think that's a salient bit. People (often middle class as classified by you) mistake and substitute the "had a basic level of education" bit for "not very bright" which is quite wrong and I find excruciating in some middle class company . You for example describe yourself as working class through education and job roll but are one of the most articulate contributors here. My family was very working class until my father who was the first to stay at school through A levels and then go to university and now he and my generation are the epitome of middle class despite family roots. I get the impression they were however very intelligent from reading their notebooks and journals as an adult and my memories of them as a child.
Isn't it the difference between "class" (ass) and "class" (arse)?
I can't decide what I am, from the myriad posts above.
I pronounce 'class' as 'clarse'.
I don't watch ITV.
I like houmous.
But:
I go to work.
I don't have ski-ing holidays.
I don't drive a 4x4.
I don't take my children out of school so that I can save a few bob on a holiday.
I don't pay more for my vegetables because they have mud on, because I grow them myself.
I have a shower both before *and* after work.
I suspect most people haven't got a clue what it means. And the rest of us really don't care.
I have not read the whole thread but I am constantly amused by people claiming to be working class when they are so obviously middle class - working class background you might have had but once you get your degree and work in a salaried job you become middle class.
"Money doesn't buy you class..."
Too many people are obsessed with this class malarkey. I know people who thrive on being upper class, who don't have a pot to pi$$ in...
I don't know where I'd put myself? I used to work as a labourer for my brother-in-laws construction company, did 9 years in the RAF, producing ministerial level products, and now work for the family business (holiday and leisure sector) which has been valued at quite a few million squids.....
I'm now driving around in Phantoms and Ferraris, but I'm still the same clown that was chuffed to bits after putting his hard earned savings towards his Citroen AX GTi...
