lizbee's entry is gone? So in response to your comment, my long-arse comment.
'Yob' is slightly different, because it isn't quite so pointedly classist, and it very specifically describes a type of behaviour, rather than being as vague and yet horribly specific (i.e., people say it's vague because they don't want to acknowledge that it mostly means 'walking or loitering while being working-class') as 'chav'. Like, my brother (I am upper-middle, very much so) could be a 'yob'.
Also, in response to america has its equivalents, one of the things that makes 'chav' so poisonous is how much it is tied to the truly incomprehensible to outsiders English class system. In America, as far as I've been able to observe, you are much more matter-of-fact about class, and class is much more based just on wealth (I have mostly observed this from Americans saying things that make me go, "WAIT, what the FUCK?" before realising that they're just using words differently - Obama's 'tax cuts for the middle class' is an excellent example, because that would cause RIOTS over here, whereas in the States it seems to have just been a straightforward "I will give tax cuts to this specific income group" statement.) whereas here, the people who are calling other people chavs and the people who are being called chavs? They will never change places in their lifetime. Ever. Oh, they might get respectively richer or poorer, but they will stay the same class. If someone tries to feign being middle-class but is actually working-class, they will be class traitors and if vice versa, they will be pathetic wannabes.
Long comment is long, because issue is complicated and also interesting.
no subject
'Yob' is slightly different, because it isn't quite so pointedly classist, and it very specifically describes a type of behaviour, rather than being as vague and yet horribly specific (i.e., people say it's vague because they don't want to acknowledge that it mostly means 'walking or loitering while being working-class') as 'chav'. Like, my brother (I am upper-middle, very much so) could be a 'yob'.
Also, in response to america has its equivalents, one of the things that makes 'chav' so poisonous is how much it is tied to the truly incomprehensible to outsiders English class system. In America, as far as I've been able to observe, you are much more matter-of-fact about class, and class is much more based just on wealth (I have mostly observed this from Americans saying things that make me go, "WAIT, what the FUCK?" before realising that they're just using words differently - Obama's 'tax cuts for the middle class' is an excellent example, because that would cause RIOTS over here, whereas in the States it seems to have just been a straightforward "I will give tax cuts to this specific income group" statement.) whereas here, the people who are calling other people chavs and the people who are being called chavs? They will never change places in their lifetime. Ever. Oh, they might get respectively richer or poorer, but they will stay the same class. If someone tries to feign being middle-class but is actually working-class, they will be class traitors and if vice versa, they will be pathetic wannabes.
Long comment is long, because issue is complicated and also interesting.