yeah, yob is more behavioural, with the understanding that the behaviour makes a person "seem" lower class, pikey has old-timey racist overtones to go with the classism, chav is more classist with just that whif of racism attached. i don't know how prevalent a concept that is in the UK, but here there is a lot of derision for "wiggers" (or other "race traitors"), which middle class people love because they get to hate on many of the cultural indicators of black americans while not having to sully their hands with "actual" racism, since they're talking about white people, not black people! i get a similar vibe from the usage of chav, and making fun of bling and tracksuits and listening to "urban" music and being on the dole and such.
to be more precise, i should have said something like "vague equivalents" -- ie, they serve a similar purpose of reinforcing white middle class values, culture and style, but of course that would be in the context of the american middle class and not the british. which is also why our classist insults are not nearly as nasty, because our class system is indeed much more dependent upon how much money you make, as opposed to what section of the populace you were born in (but not entirely independent of such concerns, as the many american stories, movies, and tv shows of ignorant poor people striking it rich, and then behaving hilariously lower class will attest to).
meanwhile obama and every other politician ever can talk about tax cuts for the middle class because here in american EVERYONE considers themselves middle class, whether they earn $18,000 a year or half a million. it's because we don't have a conception of "working class", just lower, middle, upper. no one wants to be lower-class (ie living in abject poverty), and no one wants to be upper class (ie elitist) so it's middle class for everyone. and there is definitely an upper crust elite here in the states, with the rockefellers, vanderbilts, and other WASP families who have held a lot of political power and financial power in this country since before it declared independence, but americans like to believe in the myth that everyone is middle class and ignore the fact that people from the same families keep ending up as presidents, senators, supreme court judges, ceo's of large important corporations, etc.
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Date: 2008-11-06 07:08 pm (UTC)to be more precise, i should have said something like "vague equivalents" -- ie, they serve a similar purpose of reinforcing white middle class values, culture and style, but of course that would be in the context of the american middle class and not the british. which is also why our classist insults are not nearly as nasty, because our class system is indeed much more dependent upon how much money you make, as opposed to what section of the populace you were born in (but not entirely independent of such concerns, as the many american stories, movies, and tv shows of ignorant poor people striking it rich, and then behaving hilariously lower class will attest to).
meanwhile obama and every other politician ever can talk about tax cuts for the middle class because here in american EVERYONE considers themselves middle class, whether they earn $18,000 a year or half a million. it's because we don't have a conception of "working class", just lower, middle, upper. no one wants to be lower-class (ie living in abject poverty), and no one wants to be upper class (ie elitist) so it's middle class for everyone. and there is definitely an upper crust elite here in the states, with the rockefellers, vanderbilts, and other WASP families who have held a lot of political power and financial power in this country since before it declared independence, but americans like to believe in the myth that everyone is middle class and ignore the fact that people from the same families keep ending up as presidents, senators, supreme court judges, ceo's of large important corporations, etc.