Please tell me about the "British Class System"

From 1966 linked in another thread.

But yeah but no but yeah but no

Yes. It’s just as pervasive as ever.

Would a British person consider Elizabeth Hurley posh? I'm skeptical. UK DLers please let me know.

Oh, certainly EH is posh. Maybe she wasn’t before, but her strategic alliance with Oxford grad Billy Ray Cyrus certainly catapulted her into the stratosphere of poshness.

Don't get me started!

Do they still have that Mid Atlantic accent?

I'm from the UK and in my early 40s and I've never seen any evidence of a rigid class system. That idea was done away with decades ago.

When my father was transferred to the UK to run a large swath of a American Fortune 500 company 35 years ago, he was given this, partly as a joke, but it turned out to be invaluable for its insight. If you're interested in how to talk to people in a business meeting, at parties, or at the local Waitrose dairy aisle, this is a great read.

R7 "Do they still have that Mid Atlantic accent?" Oh my sides.

I'm an American who lived in the UK, and the classist mentality of the culture was often present and noxious. I was outside it because as an American I was treated to a different set of standards and biases by British people, but still made friends only among non-English people in London, anyway.

One effect was that when I moved back to the US I could observe our American class structure better, with its complex of historical injustice within a mythos of equality that was anything but equality. And now the polarization(s) among groups in the US are even more pronounced and governmentally driven.

R11 once heard a lecture in sociology at Oxford.

Pip, pip!

R11 for something so often present and noxious, you don't seem very able to provide many examples.

[quote]It fascinates me that the UK has/had such a rigid class system, that actually locked people out from advancing beyond their station.

Most of us are fascinated by the fact that the US has one of the worst measures of economic mobility among developed countries, often quantified to be worse than that if the UK, as it is here.

Downtown Abbey is not your best window into economic reality.

Downton Abbey…

[quote] for something so often present and noxious, you don't seem very able to provide many examples.

Americans like to launch these threads every week or do to discuss their trip to London in 1987 and the insights they gained on non-American culture.

R16 "discuss their trip to London in 1987"

I was cornered by a Frau friend of an ex in LA who endlessly berated me on the quality of food in Scotland (I'm not Scottish).

I delicately asked her what was her dining budget on vacation. And had she been to Mississippi recently...

Do Americans have an equivalent word for posh?

Listening to Pulp taught me about this

[quote] Do Americans have an equivalent word for posh?

AI Overview

In slang, "posh" generally means something elegant, fashionable, and expensive. It can also refer to someone who belongs to or behaves like they belong to the upper classes. The term is often used in a British context and can be a compliment or, sometimes, a slightly negative descriptor depending on the context and tone.

R18 Bougie

What ever happened to class?

It is a interesting linguistic difference. Americans do you use the word posh (although less now) but only to refer to things (e.g., a posh hotel). I don't think there is a similar upper class/lower class distinction with respect to origins and accents in the US. That is not to say, as I noted above, that the US has exemplary social mobility or is free from snobbery.

Generally: Posh is used as a modifier for a thing or a place, but not a person.

In lieu of posh, you used to see upper crust, high society, or old money as modifiers. Now it’s just typically rich, wealthy or the one percent. In the US it’s almost always been the case that such “stratifying” words relate to perceived wealth.

Bougie is not a substitute for posh in any way.

The derivation of "posh" is thought to have been the acronym for "port out: starboard home", ie the most expensive cabins on an ocean liner. If so, it did originally refer to the people who booked those cabins.

[quote]In the US it’s almost always been the case that such “stratifying” words relate to perceived wealth.

Have you watched The Gilded Age? Season 1 was all about the war between Old Money (derived from land) and New Money (derived from, ugh! trade, eg in oil or railways). It depicts the new money men not caring much, but the women being desperate to break into the echelon they saw as truly upper crust. There were a couple of generations that strove to marry their daughters to titled but impoverished Brits in exchange for huge dowries, because even old money Americans were suckers for British titles.

[quote] Season 1 was all about the war between Old Money (derived from land) and New Money (derived from, ugh! trade, eg in oil or railways). It depicts the new money men not caring much, but the women being desperate to break into the echelon they saw as truly upper crust. There were a couple of generations that strove to marry their daughters to titled but impoverished Brits in exchange for huge dowries, because even old money Americans were suckers for British titles.

Thanks for posting this, R26.

This is exactly the thing I was getting at!

How hard is it for even incredibly wealthy people to break into the British aristocracy, and is it even possible?

Are there levels of this hierarchy, that are impenetrable? That even money can't buy?

During the actual Gilded Age, that was the very class distinction we are talking about. Money and class were two different things: money did not automatically buy you class. That nuanced view is long gone—and the language has changed because of it—which was my only point.

Yes, there is a British class system, to people born into it and they hold to it. Forget the few Royals, there is a large Nobility, inherited ancestors and wealth. There is a large Aristocracy of high rank, high office, wealth or intellect. And there the famed, even rising from the streets, whose behavior sets them aside and up. Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley and those of film fame and fortune are not aristocratic but are not outsiders. Anywhere, there is always a working class. The people who serve. And many better themselves. Too, the English do have known people with lots of money who are really trashy. It is the way of today's commercial world.

Boris Johnson a prime example of being higher class without having any class. Many others just like him.

What do you want to know about it, darling?

R27. Give it up. You are supporting your premise about British society on a TV show. That's bad enough. But it's a TV show about AMERICA!!!

I'm part of the British elite.

Would you like a scone?

R32 an America that died out over a hundred years ago…except for those pesky problems with race, immigrants and inequality.

To some extent it is still pervasive. There are certain assumptions made in Britain about a man or woman based upon their accents. It's easier in the US (or at least used to be before the return of that blimp) to rise from working to middle to upper class. Read what Fiona Hill has written and said about this. Then again, we in the US make assumptions based upon people's accents , but that's tied into race.

Americans are far friendlier and easier to get to know than Britons.

I'm an American academic with a decidedly Irish surname. Among the Brits I'm friends with or encounter professionally, there is no prejudice. But there are still prejudiced sentiments about the Irish in England.

It's fascinating that the US had a class system so rigid that in the 19th century you could separate your social inferiors from their families, rape them with impunity, whip them, and even purchase them. Fascinating beyond words.

Harrods Food Hall: for Brit aristos (and rich Arabs).

Waitrose: for the professional classes.

Sainsbury's: for the middle classes.

Tesco and Lidl: for the lower middle classes.

ASDA: for the working classes.

[quote] It's easier in the US (or at least used to be before the return of that blimp) to rise from working to middle to upper class.

Are there economic data to support the claim? Most of the data I have seen show relatively low social mobility in the US.

Hoi polloi grovel to their cosplay "betters" because subservience is a tradition in the " subjects " of Old Blighty.

Then again, we in the US make assumptions based upon people's accents , but that's tied into race.

It’s tied to region more than race, I would argue. Unless you’re already a bigot for other reasons (that’s NOT directed at you). A strong Southern accent was, is and shall always be a negative marker in the US—in particular to all of us with little or no contact with the South.

…Which is its own form of bigotry…to which I plead guilty.

Is any class of British person as disregarded and disadvantaged as the descendants of US slaves?

R37 "Harrods Food Hall for the British Aristos"

Oh my sides.

R30- Another perfect example of this type was Princess Margaret. She was coarse, ill mannered and a total CUNT.

It existed in some form throughout our history—the basic American story: the Louisiana Purchase, Manifest Destiny, the Morrill Act, etc.

From WW2 until just recently, there was especially great social mobility in the US—GI bill, federally backed mortgages, civil rights, etc. The decline is quite recent in historical terms.

R36 that wasn’t a class system. That was institutionalized racial superiority. Blacks were not even considered human—they we’re not a member of ANY class.

I was in Harrod's yesterday and it was exclusively (save me) rich Arabs.

R45. Ah. That explains it and why it disappeared once Blacks were recognized as citizens.

That’s not I said—you know that. It was not a class systems THEN.

[quote] Season 1 was all about the war between Old Money (derived from land) and New Money (derived from, ugh! trade, eg in oil or railways).

This isn't really true, except maybe in the Old South. What made people Old Money was really just that. Great-Grandad had made some big fortune somehow, for the Astors it was the fur trade. Yes descendants might invest that in real estate and now own properties, but really, the money came from some founding fortune and the family was still kind of living off that, although obviously there were all kinds of investments keeping the fortune alive. The Class came from patronage of the arts and civic engagement, and sending kids to exclusive schools and everybody sort of growing up together in the same privileged world.

That actually made them kind of insecure, because they knew deep down that the New Money really was just recreating what Great-Grandpappy did, and it was kind of irritating. Also dangerous, if the New Money could outbid them, like creating the Met to compete with the old Academy of Music.

There is nothing more amusing than to gawk at DL threads by Americans on British life. It is invariably

1. Based on a television show, a long-ago visit to London, an encounter with British people in a pub, or a second-hand account from someone seconded there for his job.

2. Makes a sweeping, usually negative characterization about Britan that usually applies at least as accurately to the US.

3. Is always about the UK because it's the only non-US culture monolingual Americans are interested in/think they know.

[Quote] Most of us are fascinated by the fact that the US has one of the worst measures of economic mobility among developed countries, often quantified to be worse than that if the UK, as it is here.

Hilarious overreach. The U.S. and UK are virtually tied in those results.

Most American billionaires are completely self-made men from common origins. How many UK billionaires have cockney accents?

The U.S. rating is very strongly affected by two factors — the sheer size of the country and the legacy of slavery — an institution planted in the colonies by the UK, by the way.

Countries over a population of maybe 120 million have different problems from small tidy homogeneous countries like Finland. It’s an apples and oranges comparison.

Compare the U.S. with other very large population countries. See what you get then.

And the African American population largely stalls out in ghettos, which is only going to get worse as that asshole Trump cuts efforts to move them forward.

Well in fairness r50, it seemed OP was ASKING Brits about their class system and whether it's true. Some of the reactions seem kind of defensive, which makes me wonder if it's more real than Brits want to admit.

R52. Just as you can ask French people wear garlic around their necks or Africans if they live in trees. You are illustrating precisely my point about how self-absorbed and provincial Americans can be.

Which are the defensive responses? I see a lot of them providing actual evidence it isn't true. Maybe you can help.

Well that would be a little defensive right there r53. Really, asking British people about their well-known and constantly referenced class system, yes on TV shows but also in classic literature, is exactly like asking modern Africans if they still live in trees?

No, as an American, I can't tell you if modern British feel like they live in a class system. But it's not some rude or terrible question. It would be like you asking about racism in America and get somebody replying that we abolished slavery and Jim Crow, dammit, so nobody gets to ask us that. These things have a way of surviving.

Since there's so little room here with the Resident Experts dribbling their biases with the arrogance of prideful habit, let's just see that the subject is too difficult for them and move on to the discussion of cunts that seems more apt for this thread.

Thanks for the evidence, R7, through all your wet spots.

Look at all the shit about Aimee Lou Wood in WL. There wasn’t any class snark involved in the generally commentary (not just here). Or Leo Woodall?🤔

R55 missed the joke.

[quote]But it's not some rude or terrible question.

Maybe not terrible, but if you don't want to be viewed a provincial or chauvinistic, I would suggest you not bring it up in real life unless you don't mind people rolling their eyes behind your back. It's provincial to base your view of a country on a TV show. It's like watching friends and asking a 25-year-old New Yorker if that represented his experience. Or watching Dallas and questioning a Texan based on the assumptions of that television program.

R38, through education and unionization, large numbers of working class individuals rose into the ranks of the middle class throughout the twentieth century.

I'll give two examples of being born either poor or of modest means to the upper middle class through education: Bill Clinton and Barak Obama. Nixon and Reagan were from modest backgrounds. Truman, Ford, and Eisenhower, as well. All other POTUS benefited from family money and well-off backgrounds.

Ramsay MacDonald and Clement Atlee were two prime ministers who were from the working class, so it is possible in GB to rise above your station in life, but it is easier in America

One US president in the 20th century grew up much poorer than any other: LBJ.

Thatcher, Heath, and Major were from modest backgrounds as well. You're not going to get anywhere from anecdotal comparisons of heads of government.

R59 I take it American history is not your focus.

Milk in after, dear.

R61 Margaret was middle class in the British sense, no? She was not working class.

From the US perspective, her background is a step above modest. Her father was employed, and they never went hungry. She was sent to decent schools. She was a striver, not a poor.

[quote]Hilarious overreach. The U.S. and UK are virtually tied in those results.

Hilarious, if you don't read, I guess. My post clearly said that the US is "often " ranked lower which is a clear acknowledgement that the UK is not dramatically better. It's just ironic an American is "fascinated" by how class-bound Britain is. Any hilarity originated in your own mind.

[quote]The U.S. rating is very strongly affected by two factors — the sheer size of the country and the legacy of slavery — an institution planted in the colonies by the UK, by the way.

Do you have any evidence for the effect of country size on social mobility? Are there any studies. Does it apply to US states as well? For example, does California have less social mobility than Louisiana?

Lastly, how do we know in advance whether a characteristic of the United States is a legacy British problem or a US problem? Is it just the bad things the UK is responsible for instituting? Or is it also responsible for any of the good things? What is the procedure for knowing before you tell us?

LBJ and Reagan are a great contrast in how to deal with things once you "make it." For LBJ, the poor do have the deck stacked against them, even if a few manage to break out. For most some help is needed, enough to give people a chance and to have at least something to lighten the load.

For Reagan, much more of an attitude of anyone can make it if they try harder, and the poor suck so pretty much fuck 'em. Focus on the rich and successful and maybe a few scraps will make it down to the poor, well hopefully. Of course Vance and most of the Republican Party embrace this shit now.

[quote]From the US perspective, her background is a step above modest. Her father was employed, and they never went hungry. She was sent to decent schools. She was a striver, not a poor.

The US examples were not poor either. They were modest. There aren't many US presidents how worked themselves up from poverty. The US presidents also went to good schools and in most cases had parents who owned property.

There aren't many US presidents how worked themselves up from poverty.

That’s an incorrect statement. And non-grammatical. ;)

I visited London once, in 1940, and I was truly shocked at the rigid social structures in place. And I recently watched an episode of Britain’s latest smash-hit documentary series, Are You being Served, which only confirmed to my saddened eyes that nothing has changed across the pond.

Not that it proves anything, but there were some presidents who came out of real, nasty, grinding poverty. I'd say LBJ and Nixon and Reagan came out of real, nasty, dad's broke or at least struggling constantly and takes it out on the kids kind of poverty. And the classic is Abe Lincoln. They really did work themselves up to the top, by sheer persistence. Yeah, they found help at times, and Reagan did it the Hollywood way which is always a little bit of luck and the right look, but still. And I think Bill Clinton.

Of course, that doesn't mean they all learned the right lessons from that, or that it means we don't have a real class system here, based on money. If anything, Reagan did his best to make the rich a permanent oligarchy.

We can debate what poor means. Nixon's father owned a lemon farm at one point, for God's sake. That's at least as much a sign of privilege as Thatcher's father owning a grocery store. Much of the poverty you cite was due to ineffectual or unlucky parents, not necessarily multi-generational poverty.

Harry Truman was the worst haberdasher in the history of KCMO!

[quote]There aren't many US presidents how worked themselves up from poverty. That’s an incorrect statement. And non-grammatical. ;)

You are endlessly clever!

Poor IS poor. Which is kind of the point of this thread, at least as it relates to the US perspective.

For r71^

[Quote] Do you have any evidence for the effect of country size on social mobility?

Ha ha look at your own post you cited, dearheart. I mean come on, do us a favor.

[Quote] My post clearly said that the US is "often " ranked lower which is a clear acknowledgement that the UK is not dramatically better.

The fact that you’re now running away from your own assertion! 😂

I would say the people who perpetuate it the most are the ones who aspire to it… for example, Liz Hurley speaking in a ridiculous way that very few upper-class people would speak today (I bet she’d have a fit of the vapours if someone said ‘toilet’ or ‘pardon’ in front of her), Bryan Ferry who married into it and then treated his wife like shit once he’d got the access he wanted and the status symbol of his children being in Burke’s Peerage. Those are the people who care about it 1000 times more than the people born into it, most of whom really don’t care like that and think poshness a ridiculous, undignified preoccupation and certainly not something to pursue.

[quote] Look at all the shit about Aimee Lou Wood in WL. There wasn’t any class snark involved in the generally commentary (not just here). Or Leo Woodall?

I don’t watch The White Lotus. What happened to Leo Woodall and her?

[quote]Clement Attlee...from the working class

[quote]Thatcher, Heath, and Major were from modest backgrounds as well.

Attlee's father was a solicitor, he went to public school and Oxford, was a major in the army. Far from working class.

Thatcher would be classed as lower-middle class: grew up over her father's grocer shop, worked hard to get to Oxford. Heath's father was a carpenter, he too grafted to get to Oxford. The most remarkable rise is that of John Major: father a circus performer, among other jobs, he grew up in a Brixton bedsit. Didn't go to any University, let alone Oxford. And yet - he held all the great offices of state, including PM. A sane and decent man, moreover, especially for a Tory. Perhaps the most extraordinary social journey of modern times.

Perhaps the most extraordinary social journey of modern times…

Abe Lincoln, Harry Truman and many other presidents pulled off that feat long before him. LBJ and Reagan included (they *barely* went to college, much less “university”).

[quote]The fact that you’re now running away from your own assertion!

Dear Lord. You should really have someone read for you before you post. Reiterating what I originally said, is the opposite of running away it.

[quote]Ha ha look at your own post you cited, dearheart. I mean come on, do us a favor

Could you point to the section that substantiates that. Given your struggles with literacy, I think it would be best to verify.

I thought the whole point of Maggie Thatcher was that she was an outsider, treated like an outsider. I get she wasn't starving as a child, but still wherever she did go, well anywhere good, wasn't she always treated as an upstart who didn't really "belong here." Being a woman added to it, but still, wasn't she always some "grocer's daughter"? And that's what a class system is all about. Who belongs at Oxford or Parliament or the Cabinet or the upper reaches of society, and who doesn't. I'm guessing it was the same with Attlee, but maybe I'm wrong about him.

And I'm not saying that as some silly, in America with a little pluck and a little grit you can always live your dream. That's complete horseshit, and it's becoming really, really destructive horseshit. I do get that.

And just like that, there’s the British class system In effect!

In the British class system all seems to breathe freedom and peace and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.

R82, Margaret Thatcher was an outsider in Conservative Party terms because (in addition to being a woman) she was also the product of a grammar-school. This stood in stark contrast to previous Conservative leaders, who tended to be products of prestigious public schools, followed by Oxbridge and/or Sandhurst.

Both Thatcher and her immediate predecessor as party leader, Ted Heath, were products of the breaks in the British class system which occurred from the 1930s onwards and which were accelerated by WWII, when both major parties became much more egalitarian.

This trend was obviously much more pronounced in the Labour Party, where men such as Ernest Bevin (wartime Minister of Production and postwar Foreign Secretary, who had very little school education at all and who was the son of a single mother who died when he was 12) and, Aneurin Bevan (founder of the NHS, who started working life as a miner in his teens) were given a route into politics through the Labour Party’s links to the trades union movement. This route into the highest levels of politics was still bringing cabinet ministers (such as John Prescott and Alan Johnson) to the highest levels of government.

I do find American preoccupation with Britain’s preoccupation with class quite funny, given that your Supreme Court has basically sanctioned the buying of political influence by corporations!

Somewhat off-topic, but do remember that the UK had an ethnically Jewish prime minister in the 1800s, a female prime minister in the 1970s followed by two more, a bachelor prime minister in the 1970s, a non-white prime minister, and several atheist prime minsters, including the current one who is openly so. The US has managed only one of these distinctions.

[quote]This trend was obviously much more pronounced in the Labour Party...

And continued to this era - I understand that Starmer's Cabinet has the most ever members educated at State Schools.

R96 like you said, off topic.

R86 ^^

Rushinus? Rishi, of course. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Rushinus

Rishi

R88. Yes, somewhat off-topic, but, fortunately, not utterly moronic.

I'd say about twelve parsecs outside the Rishi Maze.

[quote] One US president in the 20th century grew up much poorer than any other: LBJ

Followed closely by Bill Clinton

Hmm. A few years after Clinton was born, his mother married a man who owned a car dealership. By then, his mother had qualified as a nurse. Possibly that adds up to a modest upbringing. Certainly, his family had considerable dysfunction, but I'm not sure it was inordinately deprived.

They weren’t

"Posh" lost all effective meaning when the word was adopted by the very middle-class Victoria Beckham for her Spice Girl moniker.

Fair enough r95, but he definitely came out of the kind of environment that wasn't destined for Yale. He really was a success story that way, and one of the few who was able to take full advantage of the limited opportunities that came his way. I doubt anybody ever looked at him in grade school and said, that kid's going to an Ivy League someday, or college at all. Probably saw some future guy at a car dealership.

I doubt anybody DIDN'T look at the Bushes and think that of course they're going to Yale, cause that's what we do in this family. That's the class difference.

Actually, he was singled out as a promising student very early on. He chose Georgetown because of the proximity to political power. He had seen it up close at. Boys Nation.

Agreed. He did rise far higher from modest beginnings than the vast majority of humanity. But the statement was that he grew up poor, which I don't think he did. The comment was also made in the context of whether it is easier to rise in the US class system than in the British class system and some people are exaggerating the level of hardship some US presidents overcame to attempt to prove a point. I think it is admirable that the Democratic party has had a greater propensity to nominate self-made people than the Republicans have in most recent elections.

In that case he was extremely lucky r99, and extremely unusual. Again, it's a question of what is typical and what the normal expectations are. For the upper class, an upper class education is typical and normal, followed by an upper class life and professions. Yes, there have always been the lucky, lucky few plucked out of obscurity. Hell, Henry VIII had Wolsey and then Thomas Cromwell, but nobody in their right mind would say there was no class system under the Tudors.

You’re zigging while everyone else is zagging. Just acknowledge the validity of the comment and move on.

The comment made was incorrect—so easily proven wrong…“doubt anybody ever looked at him in grade school and said, that kid's going to an Ivy League someday, or college at all.”

Wrong—all WRONG.

I acknowledge the very minor point that you made r102. You were exactly correct in a largely meaningless way. Thank you for that.

[quote] Boys Nation.

Intriguing. Tell me more.

You cunts have ruined a perfectly good anglophilia thread. We’re expecting sodomies in public schools and lobotomies for the handicapables.

Nobody's ruined shit. State an interesting fact r105, and don't whine about shit.

R105, your choice of language and your strident complaints about trifling matters are both very common. Do pull your socks up - no-one likes a whiner!

[quote] I'm from the UK and in my early 40s and I've never seen any evidence of a rigid class system. That idea was done away with decades ago.

Sure, Jan. You didn’t pick up on it because you lived in it.

[quote]The derivation of "posh" is thought to have been the acronym for "port out: starboard home", ie the most expensive cabins on an ocean liner.

That was my understanding also. However, I believe the origin is more specific to ships sailing through the Mediterranean and through the Suez Canal to India. The sun would be beating down in the afternoon on the starboard side on the way east, and the port side on the way back to England. Before air conditioning, this could make for a miserable trip, making the POSH cabins more expensive.

I'm sure I read this years ago, but no idea where.

Agatha Christie stories?

That might be where I read it r110.

Possibly, R110

Probably among the aristocracy there is that unapproachable line drawn. I can’t forget Princess Michael of Kent with her Blackamoor pin driving Meghan thru a crowd. And she’s just a climber.

[quote]Agatha Christie stories?

[quote]—She was sorta posh

Her second husband was knighted, so she became Lady Mallowan. In his memoir, Christopher Hitchens mentions dining with the couple when he was an Oxford student. Their normalised anti-semitic table talk revolted him. Another facet then of the 'British Class System.'

Back in the 90s when I lived in London I dated a working-class Irish guy (with an enormous dick). I'm a musical theatre queen, and I was always trying to get him to go to a show with me, but he said that he could never live it down if his friends from work found out -It was too middle-class an activity. I finally got him to agree to go see Miss Saigon on the grounds that it was such a massive hit that everyone was going to see it - and with the proviso that we had cheap seats in the balcony. Needless to say he loved it. Next I talked him into seeing Blood Brothers, because it was about working-class struggles. By that point he was hooked and we went to see all kinds of musicals. He didn't want to see any straight plays, because that would be too arty-farty and pretentious... We lived in Islington (pre gentrification) and some of our cockney neighbors did make a few comments about him starting to get above himself... For some reason it was fine for me as an American to do those kinds of things, but not for him.

The system is clearly designed to make you miserable. The people above you and the people below you all despise you. You can't win unless you stay exactly where you are and keep to your own lane. Read the wrong newspaper or the wrong books and you can lose your friends.

I suspect "posh" was an old word repurposed to be this silly Port Out Starboard Home thing, with no real derivation. the way Fag is supposed to have all these interesting connotations without any real connection to reality, other than it's old connection to "faggot" as in bundle of sticks, hence old lady, hence sexually useless old "queen."

Please, it's about being rich. In the states the only equivalent to aristocrats is the perfect country club member...

That's the thing Europeans will never, ever get about the U.S. We can never really get to aristocracy, but some of us desperately want to get to it. But we can't. Because we are so hopelessly bourgeois. The most we can ever do is kinda sorta ape aristocracy, but we will never, ever get there.

And actually, that's a good thing. We shouldn't ever get there. It sucks as an actual ideal of society.

There's a moment in The Gilded Age which shows the difference, but the show doesn't understand it. Bertha, the super rich New Rich Bitch is explaining to the Duke that if he marries her daughter he'll be rich and therefore will be able to sustain his place in society. But that's the big thing, his place in Society is Duke. He doesn't need to sustain it. It simply exists whether he's rich or poor. But from an American perspective, no, it all depends on money, and he needs money, right?

It's two completely different ways at looking at the world, but the Gilded Age doesn't get that, because it's seeing things from only the American perspective. That is what makes us different, we Americans and you Europeans. We can't have an upper class that isn't rich. It's just how we are.

I get the feeling that the rigid class structure we associate with Britain in Victorian times and before, significantly broke down after WWII. Part of that was the cult of celebrity, which was common to both US and Britain. Once there were movie stars (Michael Caine) and musicians (the Beatles) who were unashamed of their regional accents and humble beginnings, I think lots of people in Britain began to ask themselves whether having a posh accent or trying to hide their origins was really worth it in the big scheme of things. Sports stars also began to be interviewed more, and people heard the wide variety of accents spoken by them. As a matter of fact, in discussions on reddit and youtube about posh accents, and especially RP, the overwhelming response from British people responding, at least in those forums, is that those accents sound fake, snobby, old-fashioned and stuffy. Young people in particular, seem to go out of their way to show that they're not going to pronounce middle t's and d's, but will use a glottal stop there instead.

I think when the BBC stopped making its newscasters use RP, but allowed them to use their own accents, that was also a major shift. Big scandals involved bad behaviors of royals and other aristocracy also dimmed the luster of the uppermost class in Britain. It seems younger people want to speak with the urban accents of London now to seem hip. But there are also a number of out and proud people speaking with the accents of Yorkshire, Liverpool and Birmingham, at least by what I hear in interviews.

I would hope that in the future, in both the US and Britain, class would be determined by refined behavior. Using words of politeness constantly, expressing concern for other people and sincerely inquiring about their well-being, standing up to allow an older or struggling person to sit, not denigrating other people or using slurs, having an interest in and knowledge of current events and trends, not being obnoxious and loud in public, using mild-self-deprecation rather than vicious insults as the basis of humor. . To me, all these things matter much more than birth or income. They are indicators of a person of quality. I'd strive to emulate a person like that and would try to get to know him or her better. .

Certainly the post '45 Labour Government - NHS and University expansion - then the Swinging Sixties - hugely broke down rigid UK class barriers. Almost all the cultural energy of the Sixties was generated by people of high talent or better from (dread phrase) 'humble origins.' Most of the PMs were meritocrats until Cameron and Johnson: Old Etonians who scarcely did much to revive deference to the old 'Ruling Class.' Most UK distinctions these days are based on wealth and how it's spent, the new snobbery revelled in by the invidious. Tedious, and best treated with humorous detachment.

I'm English and it definitely exists, but it's not really talked about often. People just generally know which they belong to and - among their peers - sometimes denigrate in both directions.

I suppose there are still technically three classes. It's hard to explain each because there are lots of different factors. Plus - sometimes it's easy to fall into what some would see as judgemental descriptions - hence people keep it 'nice' and miss things out.

Upper - Only really the aristrocracy, so you're born into it and remain part of it. You can marry into it - see Kate Middleton - but will potentially still be judged. Even now some newspapers will refer to Kate as "the daughter of an air hostess", which is another way of saying she'll never truly be one of them.

Middle - Split into:

Upper middle class - ie those who are privately educated and wealthy - they have connections which ensures they keep their status

Middle class or lower middle class - this is people who are in professional jobs/educated/live in 'decent' areas, etc. Quite a few people who were raised working class, but got decent jobs and earnt enough money to buy a nice house when the market was cheaper, successfully moved into this class. Sometimes their accent hints at their roots, but they're accepted as they often have signs of wealth.

Working - Classic blue collar workers. Generally less well educated, poorer, live in dodgy areas, etc. Sometimes hard to get out of given they start with little and can get trapped in unskilled jobs, which leads to a cycle.

You can move between classes but it's not that easy and you'll probably always be a bit judged by some even if you do it. For example, if someone who was raised working class does well at school and manages to get to university and marry someone who's middle class, they might still have (and I hesitate to use this phrase) a "common accent", so other middle class people will potentially look down on them a bit.

But working class people will sometimes mock "posh accents" and prissiness, so it works in both ways really.

It's not like we have committees where we decide the class of everyone, it's just something you can instinctively tell.

My interactions with people in what would be considered nobility in the UK was very pleasant. True consideration for other people’s welfare was apparent. I was impressed by the caring attitudes. At first I thought that they were just being polite but over time the sincerity was obvious. The people that chose to be obnoxious were the social climbers. One guy after he was awarded a title became very mean to everyone around him. Even in managerial roles he was removed from jobs. The crabs in the bucket types behave worse than Mrs Bucket.

Good manners are an asset to everyone, but they are a survival technique for the monarchy and aristocracy. The British aristocracy and upper class has learned, through a process of evolution over centuries, that its survival depends at least to a great degree on ensuring that it keeps a sense of proportion. European monarchies and aristocracies usually fall when a war is lost or when masses of people are starving and grow to hate their rulers. Britain has generally avoided those fates.

The British class system evolves, but like almost everything in our politics, it is based on small incremental changes. And the higher up the ladder you are, the more interest you have in making sure that those lower down are not motivated enough to tear it down. This interest leads to events like George V (in many ways a deeply Conservativ efigure) making it known that he donated to the charities set up to supporrt strikers during the General Strike in the 1930s and taking the decision to appoint Ramsay MacDonald as Britain’s first socialist Prime Minister even though he could have chosen from one of the other two candidates who also had a democratic mandate for the role.

The old class structure may seem very rigid, but it is a culturally and economically nebulous thing: for example a builder is likely to consider himself working class, but his earning power may far exceed that of a teacher who considers himself to be middle-class.

Since the US never experienced feudalism it never had a true aristocracy. In the end, everything in the US is about money. An idiot with a big bank account has higher status than an educated person who has no money. See Trump as an example, It’s assumed if you’re rich you are also smart. No one actually cares if your mother cleaned toilets for a living or you can’t read as long as you’re rich. That actually works in your favor.

R125 [quote]It’s assumed if you’re rich you are also smart

I live in the South an it's one of the most irritating things I hear when some people refer to the wealthy. Someone can be dumber than a pile of bricks and they're still considered the smartest person they've ever known. 🙄

That’s why they’re in the South!

There are things that will trap you in lower class status in the US that aren't an issue in the UK such as inability to afford car ownership (unless you're in one of the few cities with good public transit) or health insurance - medical debt being the chief source of bankruptcy and downward mobility.

….medical debt is not chief source of bankruptcy and downward mobility in the US.

FIFY

R127 The naughty north and the sexy south!

I have an acquaintance who grew up in working class Manchester but just bought an £800k house, owns rental properties etc. He said he lays on the accent when he's in London just for fun. /anecdote

Class, gas or ass

To R22-"CLASS IS DEAD"

r40, one of my black friends and her family from Oakland are well educated (Phds, et all), and other black people will accusingly ask them why they sound white.

When I was a shopbottom at Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills, there was a dark skinned Brit working in the one of the clothing departments- I witnessed her approaching a white woman, who immediately said, "No, I don't need help". Brit said, "That's okay, just let me know if you do," As soon as the woman heard hear accent, she said, "Wait, I do need help!". The Brit told me that happened all the time to her, because for some reason, Americans think a British accent makes a person more posh.

It's funny to me that the appropriation of "bougie" from bourgeois means upper class when it really doesn't.

what class would people like tom daley be in? what about people from Australia, NZ, Canada... are they included or excluded?

R135 - Well, he has been awarded an OBE, but apparently that's not considered an aristocratic thing, so he's still middle-class.

He’s at the bottom of his class.

*rim* shot

It exists in the American South. There are rich rednecks with family names associated with streets in their small towns and they pass them onto their kids. Awkwardly. Little girls running around called Sue Bray or Mary Cheatham, don't you dare just call them Sue or Mary. They all have "farms" in middle Georgia or Tennessee which are just the old family plantations. The smart ones turned them into lumber and hunting blinds. They still have cotillion classes and drive $100,000 pickup trucks. I'm call them hillwilliams and their stupid kids go to Ole Miss and get cushy jobs from their fraternity brother's dads and enshittify the country voting for Trump. And pass along their dumb last names as first names.

Ghastly! Just ghastly!

124 wrote: "The old class structure may seem very rigid, but it is a culturally and economically nebulous thing: for example a builder is likely to consider himself working class, but his earning power may far exceed that of a teacher who considers himself to be middle-class." 117 wrote: "Please, it's about being rich."

In the USA, class is pretty well linked to money. There are, of course, exceptions, like the New Jersey guido who makes a fortune in the construction business or the Alabama redneck who earns millions by selling the family farm (read: plantation). But, if they manage to not lose their money, and in a generation or two the kids have attended private schools and good-enough universities and hold the correct Luxury Beliefs, the family will have ascended to "upper class." I recently heard an American refer to a young woman as "old money" because in the 1950s her grandfather started a now-very successful business.

In England, the timelines and the class distinctions are rather different. There's a funny clip in which Victoria Beckham claims to have been raised Working Class and David challenges her because her dad drove a Rolls Royce. To Americans, this is hilarious: if you drive an expensive car, you must be at least upper middle class; silly Victoria. But to Brits, it was self-evident. Victoria was clearly a chav, her dad was an electrical engineer, mum was a hair-dresser. They might have been more lower Middle Class than Working Class, but in any case: they were low on the class totem pole. Yes, they went on to earn a lot of money by opening an electronics wholesale business, and now Victoria is a multi-millionaire but class is about birth and family, not about money. There are plenty of aristos who have burned through the family fortune and who aren't wealthy in the least but they still have the cachet of being Upper Class because their great-great grandfathers were.

"How about people like Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley, who look and sound posh? Can they enter the upper class, just by looks?" No, absolutely not. And they neither look nor sound Upper Class. Allegedly, Liz Hurley changed her way of speaking once (to sound a higher class) she became famous and this made her the butt of much scorn. As 115 pointed out, you are expected to stay in the lane you were born into and taking the accent or mannerisms of another class makes one the object of derision.

In short: the class system is still rigidly defined but people care far less than they used to. Today, I would guess that at least 90% of Brits would rather be rich than titled whereas even 100 years ago, that number would have been quite different.

My husband’s cousin just bought a $100,000 Ford Ram 600hp truck. They live in …exurban NYC. Somers!—on the Westchester/Putnam border. They have a 10 foot Trump flag in their garage. They send their kids to the local private school because “it’s better.” We don’t agree on anything…but we love them. We get along great…no políticas allowed.

[quote]Heath's father was a carpenter, he too grafted to get to Oxford.

Just to clarify -- "graft" has only a negative connotation in US-speak, so American readers shouldn't misinterpret this. In BritSpeak, it just means "hard work."

[quote]Would you like a scone?

OK, and then may I butter your buns?

* Dodge

Sorry! Shame on me—woke in 10001. ;)

R142 really? A gardener

[quote]Barak Obama

The man was president for eight years and you still can't spell his name?

[quote] "How about people like Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley, who look and sound posh? Can they enter the upper class, just by looks?" No, absolutely not. And they neither look nor sound Upper Class. Allegedly, Liz Hurley changed her way of speaking once (to sound a higher class) she became famous and this made her the butt of much scorn. As 115 pointed out, you are expected to stay in the lane you were born into and taking the accent or mannerisms of another class makes one the object of derision.

Hugh Grant tells quite a funny (and rather telling) story which says something about British attitudes to fame, class and cash. Shortly after he hit the fame and wealth stratosphere with Four Weddings and a Funeral, his mother went to a dinner party and had the following conversation:

Guest: “and what do your children do, Mrs Grant?” Mrs Grant: “Well, my eldest is a banker and my youngest is a film star.” Guest: “Oh, really?! Which bank?”

Aren’t you the droll one!

Oy gevalt.

I have a close friend who is a brilliant pianist and teacher. He's originally from Dublin, but he grew up Anglican rather than catholic. His students have won major competitions all over the world. He is fiercely intelligent and very well educated. He is lionized wherever he travels. But not in England.

He's not sure whether it's his Irish heritage, or just a general English quality reserved for foreigners but he feels looked down upon, especially by the academics and highly cultured people he interacts with professionally. People are not impolite to him. However, he feels they are condescending to him

My impression is that the British upper class is relatively small and insular and that if you were not born into it you would have very little interaction with, or awareness of, who they are or what they do. Also, if you were not born into it, it is closed to you no matter how much money you have. You might have gone to school with them and they make be polite to you, but you are not really in the club and never will be.

Play it like a Yank: fuck those assholes. ESAD!

R61, anecdotal evidence adds up. More importantly, it reflects more general trends. In the USA especially, education has proven to be the avenue by which large numbers of working class individuals have risen to the ranks of the middle class from the mid-twentieth century onwards. Unionization was also a major factor in this.

For Black people it has been much harder to achieve, but the trend is true for them as well.

No—it’s money plain & simple.

Unionized success died a while ago—where are you living? $ is king, for every group in the US.

[quote]"How about people like Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley, who look and sound posh? Can they enter the upper class, just by looks?" No, absolutely not. And they neither look nor sound Upper Class.

Hugh Grant sounds upper-middle-class British, even borderline upper class, because that's exactly what he is. He attended Oxford, and is descended from an Earl and a Marquess (via his mother, I believe).

Hurley was solidly middle class, her father was an army major and her mother a teacher.

Better examples of actors who were born working class but are now considered more upscale are the aforementioned Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Idris Elba.

Whatever he sounds like, he’s still a dipshit..,

[quote]Victoria is a multi-millionaire but class is about birth and family, not about money.

[quote]Also, if you were not born into it, it is closed to you no matter how much money you have.

Beckham finally finally got the Knighthood he yearned for, and has had front page pictures with The King. Doubtless these images worked well for both of them. (David might just be the most tattooed man ever to gain a Knighthood.) I can only wonder though about much Society is polite to him, but no more. This is a man who said, 'We want to have our son Christened, but we're not sure yet which religion.'

Years ago on a visit to London I was staying in the old Philbeach Hotel in Earl's Court. There was a particularly loathsome old queen in the lounge who insisted on questioning me about my background. I called myself middle class (American, college educated, profession, home owner) and he went through the roof because, according to him, you had to be of independent means to be called middle class. Absent a private income you had to work for a living and were therefore working class.

What say you, Brits? Is everyone working class unless they have a private income?

There's a YouTube channel called 'Jimmy the Giant' with lots of topics like class system analyzed.

[quote]... he went through the roof because, according to him, you had to be of independent means to be called middle class.

Absolute rubbish. Many, most, doctors lawyers and teachers don't have independent means, but they're educated, and not working class as traditionally understood.

[quote]...a particularly loathsome old queen

This accurate perception explains the crass opinion.

There’s an aspect of class I’m not sure has been mentioned. I’ve seen it whilst working as a consultant in various sectors in my 20+ years in London. Many higher class people often work low pay but high prestige jobs especially in government and charity. You’ll see people with Oxbridge degrees working jobs that pay barely in the £20k’s or even volunteering for free because they know they have a familial safety net. They always seem to live well despite the highly inflated costs cost of living of this city. This is especially magnified in the arts and creative sector, and much has been written about how class stratified it has become. It’s increasingly difficult for anyone not subsidised by their families to break in.

He sounds awful r158, but weirdly entertaining. Did he have any other insane opinions? He seems like he would, and be eager to share them.

lol - He did indeed, R162. The conversation started when he heard me telling someone about a West End show I had seen the night before. This man proceeded to tell me (and everyone within earshot) that America had no culture at all, and had contributed nothing to the arts. I mentioned jazz, blues, rock and roll, tin pan alley, and musical theatre, but he dismissed them as derivative and owing more to Africa and eastern European operetta than anywhere else. Hollywood films and television were beneath his notice. He even declared that there were no American-born-and-trained conductors. Leonard Bernstein was dismissed as a showboater who was the personification of vulgarity...

The whole conversation has stayed with me for all these years -he was so smug and self-righteous! I can still see him sitting in a chair, sipping a drink, dribbling a bit from his glass. Dandruff on his jacket. Eyes puffy. Stereotypically-bad teeth (which I have never seen on any other British person)...

And then there is the question of 'how old does money have to be' in order to be "old money"? I remember discussing this with a UK friend who belonged to all the right clubs and had all the right initials after his name, and he said that since they only had been prominent since the mid 1800s they were very definitely not old money. He was in the middle of the Sunday Times Rich List and did his home repairs mostly himself, although there were any number of domestic staff.

I'm an American and got along well with them, but the wife wasn't exactly crazy about Americans in general.

(I posted this in "Family Prominence" and after I pushed the Post button I realized it probably should have went here.)

What r161 observes explains the many gallery assistants, humanities PhDs and boutique store owners in the US whose wages couldn’t possibly support their lifestyle.

r163 You did better than I would have in holding your tongue. Britain has contributed a great deal to world culture, most especially in literature, but compared to Germany, France, and Italy, it has contributed very very little to musical culture. (And less still to world-class painting and dance). With all due respect to Elgar, Sullivan, Holst, and Britten, they represent tiny side-bars in the total body of great musical literature. Handel, whom they like to claim, was of course, completely German.

[quote] "Oh, Margaret, you tiresome girl!" cried her aunt. "Here have I been persuading Herr Liesecke to stop for Pomp and Circumstance, and you are undoing all my work. I am so anxious for him to hear what we are doing in music. Oh, you mustn't run down our English composers, Margaret."

So where do I fit in?

R166. It depends on the period you are looking at. Post1933 Germany 's contribution to creative musical life has been negligible. England has had far greater creativity after that point. The Nazis seem to have killed German composition permanently. And pre-Bach, England had a large number of important composers. But, yes, in the classical and Romantic periods, England was pretty much inactive

you forgot to mention Russian/Soviet musical and literary influence throughout the 19th and 20th centuries r166...

True, r150.

Then who cares? Many Brits care—that’s the sticking point TBH.

A sociology professor stated that a family is middle class only if it survives the death of the family’s patriarch/matriarch without damage to its economic, social, or political standing.

For the American divisions nothing is better than this book. I read it 40 years ago and it still resonates. Class, by Paul Fussell.

r174 that book is an interesting time capsule, but much of it is outdated.

My sister married a wealthy Brit whose family made their money in spices (I don't know when, but more than 3 generations ago), so definitely merchant class. They own chateaus, art, and covinced the Louvre to give a private tour to one of their family members who was going blind when it was closed during the pandemic. He definitely lords over us, always correcting us, mocks our American ways.

[quote]He definitely lords over us, always correcting us, mocks our American ways.

Brits tend to do that with everyone, not just Americans. But the funny thing is that nobody they mock really cares. Americans, French, Germans etc. just roll our eyes and act bemused.

[quote]Is always about the UK because it's the only non-US culture monolingual Americans are interested in/think they know.

The UK founded the US and culturally we are very similar. Why wouldn't Americans be interested in the UK more than instead of, say, France or Spain?

And as for monoliguialism (which is also true of Brits, btw) - we are an enormous country with a shared language, we don't really need to know another language in our daily lives. European countries are very small and share borders with countries that speak another language, of course if makes sense that they would know several languages. If, for example, the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts all spoke different languages, the residents of those states would be fluent in multiple languages.

Read Noblesse Oblige by Nancy Mitford

R179, Mitford wrote that book 70 years ago. Things change, and much of what she wrote was not meant seriously anyway.

Read “Love in a Cold Climate” instead: it’s much more entertaining!

“The UK founded the US”

What bizarre statement. Trumpian view of history

The UK didn't exist when the US was founded.

Gentleman hire trade, they don’t work in it.

I was watching a British sitcom on youtube once from about 1973. The show was about a widowed mother and her struggles with raising her children alone. It doesn't sound very comedic but anyway they were middle class but very well spoken- in todays terms they spoke POSH as the Brits would say as if that is a bad thing. In the UK now it is considered progress that lower class sounding people covered in tattoos are presented as middle class. I don't consider that progress. I consider it disintegration.

No disintegrations!

"Gentleman hire trade, they don’t work in it."

Does rough trade count?