Being Posh - c/d?

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So, being posh, privileged, blue-blooded, public school, trustafarian etc. What do we reckon? Comments, thoughts and anecdotes on poshness here.

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 25 July 2003 14:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Neither classic nor dud, though I'm not overly fond of people who clearly are a bit better off than they play themselves to be, being poor is not cooler than rich, etc. JARVIS TO THREAD.

― Ally (mlescaut), Friday, 25 July 2003 14:16 (twenty-two years ago)

posh rappers - c/d?

― james (james), Friday, 25 July 2003 14:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think I've taken advantage of my education either at the time or since, but I've never not enjoyed being 'posh'. I think I assumed you couldn't be a public schoolboy and be a music journalist, which in hindsight was staggeringly naive!

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 25 July 2003 14:33 (twenty-two years ago)

look at me now :(

― duke of mark s (mark s), Friday, 25 July 2003 14:34 (twenty-two years ago)

it's Dud if you think you're better than others because you're posh. Classic if you're rich and buy the rounds.

― ken c, Friday, 25 July 2003 14:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I enjoyed the posh rapper very much indeed, especially the DJ's words of encouragement at the end.

Can you be posh and smelly?

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 25 July 2003 15:04 (twenty-two years ago)

But Mr Miller, you've never been there when I've rapped!

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 25 July 2003 15:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I like 'Young, Posh and Loaded' but I really miss Stacey from 'Club Reps - The Workers'.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 25 July 2003 15:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Isn't posh kind of over for 2003? I mean, at least this season.

― Mandee, Friday, 25 July 2003 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

It's all about the Derelikt look.

― Ally (mlescaut), Friday, 25 July 2003 15:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Mandee, I'll go back to glottal stops and glassing people in bars off Oxford Street for the autumn. You slaaaaaaaag.

;)

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 25 July 2003 15:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark associates not being posh with beating people up!

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I wish Ms. Adams would be Posh more often.

― Larcole (Nicole), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Sigh. Yes, perhaps to an extent I do, Nick. But I'm not going to argue with you.

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

No he's going to bottle you.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry Mark. Please don't Moet bottle me.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

poshness itself = fine
allowing your poshness to make you stuck up = the dud thing

― Pabst Blue Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Moet? Posh? It's all about the Cris, yo.

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I like posh people. But the ones with loads of money as well as breeding do tend to be kind of ridiculous. I don't come from a working class lineage, so I haven't got any class warfare chips on my shoulder, though I don't mind it when people do, as long as it's not just a pose and they follow it through in some way that goes beyond just boring sniping at Tara T-P.

How posh is 'posh', btw? Are we talking titled, connections with titled folk or just U middle class? I do sometimes refer to myself as posh, when people ask why I don't have a London accent or something like that.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

P-T whatever.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I often get called posh, but I'm not rich, titled, landed or anything. I can be your benchMark.

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:19 (twenty-two years ago)

What good are you posh people if you don't have money, title, or land? I would have thought the upshot to being posh would be to sit around counting bags of gold and people having to call you Lord Fluffington.

― Larcole (Nicole), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry Mark. Please don't Moet bottle me.

!!!!!!!!

"Mad niggas was gettin drunk at the bar/
I'm throwin Moet bottles HA HA HA HA HA HA/
It's rowdy outside, I ain't signin shit/
DON'T FLOW BITCH!"

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark, from what you know of me, would you say I am more or less the same or does the Peckham debacle (we lived in St John's Wood and Hampstead before that) render me an oik?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Or are these questions difficult to answer without meeting parents and grandparents?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Larcole you will never understand our class system.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Nick, my guess is that we're about the same. Both coddled sons of immigrant fathers, raised in nice areas with a relatively easy passage through life and well-spoken voices.

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I think you get more stick for it though.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Lord Fluffington

Brett Anderson's cat is a noble?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I think I do too. Probably because you live in a "characterful" Glasgow tenement while I live next door to Simon Le Bon.

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a feeling you would be somewhat surprised if you saw where I lived, Mark.

Simon Le Bon = trashy new money

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Um, Nick, haven't I been to where you lived?

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, did you? I genuinely can't remember that! Well it seems posh to me. 'Characterful' is usually a euphemism for run down, which I do find it hard to regard my place as being.

Sorry for diverting your thread into a discussion of how posh I am.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Are you sure you came to my flat? I find it odd that I would have totally forgotten such a thing. What did we do?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Roiphynol strikes again :(

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Jody, your new name rocks. Keep it.

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 25 July 2003 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know where I fit on the scale. I've been thought posh once or twice by very non-posh people, but at the public school I went to I was about the most common kid in the school - even one of the teachers took the piss! Still, public school and Cambridge and a professional job and owning a biggish house in London obviously puts me a little towards the posher end of middle class.

Anyway, nothing wrong with it as so many have said, assuming you don't translate it into an assumption that you are better than people from other backgrounds, however you identify them. A lot of the poshest kids at Cambridge did take that attitude, and several I have met since too.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 25 July 2003 20:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Sometimes people call me posh. I think it’s because I don’t have any sort of regional accent and can use cutlery without looking nervous. (I am Irish)

― Lara (Lara), Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Lara you do sound like you're from Dublin, even if not very.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, just like Ray.

― Lara (Lara), Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha, not not like him.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Proust is obsessed with landed and titled people, and after every 1000pp at a time of showing off this fact he absurdly denies it and says he's a great democrat.

I am not going to be around to defend myself from irate Proustian riposteurs.

― the pinefox, Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

irate Proustian riposteurs

They sounds terrifying.

― Lara (Lara), Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:30 (twenty-two years ago)

and they're HEADED THIS WAY!!

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Eh by gum.

― Lara (Lara), Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Why will the Pinefox not be around to argue this? This is a worrying statement.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:41 (twenty-two years ago)

He's taking tea at the Ritz and couldn't stay.

― Lara (Lara), Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I probably seem a bit posh because I don't have a Chicago accent (I have a mishmosh accent, but mostly East coastish) But I swear a lot, so that probably evens things out.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Saturday, 26 July 2003 14:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been an aide for rich people and for not-so-rich people, and I'd just like to say that every rich person (and their caretakers) that I've taken care of has been really nice. It's been the upper-middle-class people who were the real terrors.

― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Saturday, 26 July 2003 18:36 (twenty-two years ago)

That made no sense to me until I remembered that the US class system is just about MONEY.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 26 July 2003 18:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I was just about to say "ILx in having lots of rich english people on it SHOCKER!" but now what do you mean by that?

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Saturday, 26 July 2003 19:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha, I just realized I feel about class the way ethan feels about race.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Saturday, 26 July 2003 19:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, by the logic of Christine's post Bill Gates is the poshest person in America. We don't really use the word 'posh' like that over here.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 26 July 2003 19:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess we don't either; no one here would consider bill gates posh (we hardly ever use the word but still). More like east coast old money, okay, I see what you mean.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Saturday, 26 July 2003 19:14 (twenty-two years ago)

We don't really use the word 'posh' like that over here.

...which is why I didn't use it.

That made no sense to me until I remembered that the US class system is just about MONEY.

Yep.

― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry yeah, but you said 'upper middle class' to mean 'people who aren't quite rich'. So do you think of as Bill Gates or whoever as upper class?

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:17 (twenty-two years ago)

In the US: Muffie Potter-Aston is posh. Puffy is new-money living posh. Bill Gates is new-money who has no interest in living posh. If you have money and you want to go in posh circles, you're accepted to a pretty good extent. I think that there's still certain areas where the money has to be old for a person to be accepted, but those are fewer than in Europe.

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess I'm not really talking about 'acceptance'. It's more just people being able to spot the background you're from.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Bill Gates is new-money

his father was a well-established corporate lawyer before he started Microsoft. depends what you mean by "money" though.

who has no interest in living posh

are you familiar with his house?! what's the basis of the statement? consider that he seeks to be part of the microsoft brand as well as something of a political figure (not a politician, but someone who has persuasive power in the public arena, on a number of subjects).

Well, by the logic of Christine's post Bill Gates is the poshest person in America. We don't really use the word 'posh' like that over here.

v. interested to hear the explanation for this. is it possible that "posh" in America only has meaning where money possesses Anglophilic trappings? and what are those, precisely?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:41 (twenty-two years ago)

what's the basis of the statement?

Maybe teeny meant that he doesn't seek to use his position to associate with the old money WASP elite.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Why would they care about knowing your background if it didn't tell them how to treat you? :)

x-post: I was unclear, gabbaneb. By posh, I meant "society." Not living in comfortable surroundings or having lots of things, but moving in a certain social circle. Not just meeting heads of state or whatever, but having a certain amout of social (as differentiated from political) power to wield.

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Trying to go back to the original (anglocentric) question, I as an American interpret English poshness to be breeding and old money, and the closest thing we have to that in American is people like the Astons and the Astors, etc. Those people mix with Hollywood stars and musicians but I'm not sure really how far the new money penetrates into the old money circles.

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Why would they care about knowing your background if it didn't tell them how to treat you? :)

I see the smiley, but speaking personally there's no real reason, it's just this thing!

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I guess I know what you mean, nick, I'm always interested in people's stories and backgrounds too, sometimes to the point where I'm afraid I'm being intrusive.

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:52 (twenty-two years ago)

The thing is, over here you don't really need to be intrusive. It's all in vocabularies, for a start (the Mitford U/Non-U thing) - lunch/dinner, sofas and settees etc.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 26 July 2003 21:58 (twenty-two years ago)

So posh is like being a character in a Bret Easton Ellis novel? Not good at all

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Sunday, 27 July 2003 01:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Can you be posh and smelly?

Rich Harvard undergrads to thread! (Ask me about R*pert M*rdoch's son sometime.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 27 July 2003 01:34 (twenty-two years ago)

being posh is only dud if you get all shitty about people being trashy.

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Sunday, 27 July 2003 02:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I never really thought about the posh = money thing.

In Britain, you can be Aristocratic posh - often with oodles of old money, often entirely bankrupt due to self-indulgent ancestors spending th family cash, leaving you with a 60-room mansion in Wales to maintain.

Upper-middle class posh doesn't necessarily require a posh or rich background - tends to be the families of lawyers, bankers etc. who have settled somewhere genteel, send their children to private schools, have a cleaner and a nanny but no servants. I just about fit into this category albeit at the bottom end.

It is entirely possible to be absolutely rolling in cash and not be in the slightest bit posh. It is likely, however, that children will become posh to a degree as they get the public school education and ponies and whatnot.

Nick, you're right, I've never been to your place. My mistake.

― Mark C (Mark C), Sunday, 27 July 2003 08:50 (twenty-two years ago)

being posh is only dud if you get all shitty about people being trashy.

I like to think that properly posh people don't do that, but it's probably not true. I do think you are just as likely to find them indulging in cultural tourism / slumming it, though. (Victoria Aitken to thread)

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 27 July 2003 08:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Yah, but I think it usually takes a generation or three to fully sink in. Depends on how much the original wealth creator clings on to their own roots too.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 27 July 2003 08:56 (twenty-two years ago)

yea, when i was growing up there was this lad we knew, his dad was a millionaire but was really working class, but made a bunch of cash when he was in his 30s, his son got like every creature comfort ever, but his dad tried to bring him up working class, and he went to normal school and stuff, but at same time he wasnt workingclass, there was obvious difference. then he did that common people thing of overcompensating, getting into football hooliganism and being one of the boys from the estate etc etd, though he was one step ahead of the common people archetype by at least being honest about his cash, by waving it in your face like one of the 'boys' would. blah blah blah

― gareth (gareth), Sunday, 27 July 2003 09:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, those stories are kind of sad.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 27 July 2003 10:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Some early experiences suggested to me that the posh people who were nasty about other classes were mostly those struggling into the highest classes or unsure of their places there, sort of needing to push others down to try to hold/establish the position they wanted, and that those secure in such positions felt no such need. There is some truth in that, but I've also come across nth generation securely wealthy and upper class types who assumed they were therefore better than everyone else, people with a clear hierarchy of human worth 90% based on what kind of school you went to - there were quite a lot of these at Cambridge.

Some of you won't know this, but as well as applying to Cambridge the university, you have to apply to a particular college. I looked into this and found that Corpus Christi had the highest academic standards, was centrally located and guaranteed you a room in college for the first year, so that was my pick. It turned out to be at least 80% kids from the handful of schools everyone in Britain has heard of - Eton, Harrow, Rugby and the like, the most expensive schools around. An awful lot of these people had this mental hierarchy, in which I ranked a bit down having come from an obscure public school, for instance. The way they treated my fiancee, who had left her comprehensive school at 16 and was about as working class as it gets, was unspeakable. It was an extremely posh college - you had to wear your gown to dinner, where there was waiter service. This was provided by kids from the town, and they were treated by some as if they were subhuman.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 27 July 2003 13:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I guess if you are posh and not a wanker you are quite likely to avoid applying to Corpus Christi, Peterhouse etc. I think it's partly just that a large percentage of men from whichever class feel the need to go through some obnoxious arsehole phase. Most of them grow out of it, I think.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 27 July 2003 13:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I just cottoned on to the sofa/settee thing. What are you if you say 'couch'?

― Lara (Lara), Sunday, 27 July 2003 18:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Americans are allowed. Probably the Irish too. My mother would probably raise her eyebrows.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 27 July 2003 18:31 (twenty-two years ago)

That's cos I'm so pretty.

― Lara (Lara), Sunday, 27 July 2003 18:33 (twenty-two years ago)

If I said it, that is. She's not a rude snob, and mixes with all sorts of people.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 27 July 2003 18:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Cross post - yes, she would raise her eyebrows for that reason of course.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 27 July 2003 18:33 (twenty-two years ago)

mixes with all sorts of people

Well I suppose you meet all sorts down at the pits.

― Lara (Lara), Sunday, 27 July 2003 18:37 (twenty-two years ago)

As I indicated, that was a cross post and wasn't referring to you.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 27 July 2003 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)

If that makes it better. I realise it sounds pretty bad but you know what I mean.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 27 July 2003 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)

You are being very apologetic, do you want to kiss me or something?

― Lara (Lara), Sunday, 27 July 2003 18:41 (twenty-two years ago)

six years pass...

can you be posh without being patronising? i dont think ive met very many.

― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Monday, 9 November 2009 14:09 (sixteen years ago)

Maybe it's you: you consider all posh people patronising. Just a thought. /cleverbot

― Nathalie (stevienixed), Monday, 9 November 2009 21:35 (sixteen years ago)

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