Euphemisms

Alan Titchmarsh says people say Monty Don is more “cerebral” than him – ie more middle class.

the hustle and bustle of the city = common people we are forced to share the space with (the opposite is “tranquillity” = an absence of chavs. What you move to the country to find. May also be known as "peace and quiet" or "more space".)

Peter Wilby on the media response to the shooting of Rhys Jones, Sept. 2 07 The story was, to use the media academics' term, "framed" within 36 hours of the boy's death. "Gang war invades middle-class haven," was the Telegraph's headline. Rhys lived on a private estate of "hanging baskets", "ornamental water features" and "polished Audis and Mazdas" (the Times), "mock Tudor white-timbered gables" and "solar-powered garden lights" (the Independent). His killers came from "rotting, feral" council estates (the Telegraph) of "high corrugated iron fences" and "tattooed men . . . with small squat dogs" (the Independent).

The middle classes are leaving the state [educational] sector in droves … partly because they think their children will be mixing with pupils who will not help their child reach full potential. Nick Clegg, reported in the Evening Standard, Nov 23 07


More here. And many more in my mini ebook Boo & Hooray: Dysphemisms and Euphemisms (see sidebar).

all the advantages private school
arriviste Someone who has "arrived" in "good society" from elsewhere

background class origins

bohemian, liberal knows people who aren’t in the top 400, or who don’t have three houses and three holidays a year

choice getting your children into the best school

Choice is considered a dirty word by many educationalists but parents – weirdly enough – are actually quite keen to push their children into better schools. This site helps them beat the system. (Daily Telegraph)

classy posh (But posh people would never say it.)

coiffured lower middle-class

Mrs Salmond is carefully coiffured. (Times May 2007, ie )
Three well-manicured, coiffeured ladies [in Sedgefield] (Guardian 2007)

community, involving the (as in the local community, community picnic, community choir) “We” must involve the “community” in what “we” are doing. The middle classes aren’t “the community” because they can afford to live where they like and are always moving on.

cut-glass accents posh voice (New Statesman 2004. The same article calls the voice “absurdly affected”. It can only be affected if someone’s learned it in later life. New Statesman readers used to affect a working-class accent.)

dignified black or working class (people we wouldn’t expect to be dignified)

"Dignity" award for Walker family: The family of murdered teenager Anthony Walker have been honoured for their "calm dignity in the face of tragedy". His mother, Gee Walker, accepted the first ever Profile in Courage Award from the National Black Crown Prosecution Association (NBCPA). (bbc.co.uk 2006)

Alan Johnson and his family are praised for their “dignity” all over the press July 2007. The family hid their feelings and didn’t show emotion – or did so only in a very controlled way. Working-class people in the news are praised by the broadsheets for “dignity” if they don’t show emotion; but they'll be pilloried by the tabloids. Dignity also means not selling your story to the media.

The Value of Dignity: A trial by media will not help to find the truth about Madeleine McCann (Times Sept 2007)

discerning posh
down-to-earth has the common touch (if said of someone posh)

eclectic bunch contains common people
folk working class people

gritty (gritty reality, urban grit) working-class, no Starbucks, not trendy

Gritty publishers New English Library (Guardian 2007)

guilty pleasure doing something that lets the side down, like reading Heat or shopping at Costcutter
hard-working families Middle England (Gordon Brown)

heavy common décor (heavy window treatments). Probably combined with “garish colour schemes”, “fussy” arrangements and “busy” patterns. (American)

hysteria working class people protesting, story printed in tabloid

leafy middle-class (suburb, street)

...enjoyed a dappled upbringing in Hampstead (Guardian 2002 Presumably the light was dappled after filtering through all those leaves)

A Thomas Kinkade painting of a charming, rain-dappled village - complete with church steeple, families out walking the pet Dalmatian and thickets of flowers. (salon.com)

Dr Hunter offered the example of a school in a ‘better, leafy area’ that took three children in care. (Guardian 2003)

Cannabis plantation found in leafy suburb: Cannabis plants have been found growing at the site of a planned upmarket housing development in a wealthy Aberdeen suburb. Police have been called in after the plants were found growing in greenbelt woodland near the Milltimber area. (The Scotsman, 2004)

Just because a school is in a so-called leafy suburb, that does not mean the parents are wealthy. Many will have stretched themselves to the limit to buy houses in the catchment areas of these schools. (Guardian)

like-minded middle class

mainstream society aspirant, law-abiding, tax-paying, willing to play the game, the bit some people are “excluded” from

mass audience common people

Middle England Martin Jacques has complained that Middle England is a "metaphor for respectability, the nuclear family, conservatism, whiteness, middle age and the status quo" (New Statesman 2007 That’s a euphemism, not a metaphor.)

mob a lot of working-class people
ordinary folk working-class people (and you’d never say “middle-class folk”)
ordinary people common people, less-than-rich people

over-stuffed furniture code for lower class

They live in a detached house obscured from a busy road by six fir trees and overgrown foliage... "Tarl-Lea" reads the name plate fixed between the green garage door and the frosted glass of the porch through which can be glimpsed the twee furnishings of a comfortable family home: a tasselled lamp, an over-stuffed sofa and a slightly garish carpet.” (The Guardian, 2000)

people from all walks of life including working-class people, or maybe just working-class people

posh people never say “posh” but “smart” or “grand”. They mock people as “fratefully grahnd” and ever so “oysters at the Savoy”.

prominent his family was socially prominent, though his performance was outstanding and the question was salient

showy vulgar
simple working class

He came from a simple family. (BBC on James Callaghan)

smothered in heavy/complicated sauces common food (like over-stuffed furniture) The middle classes are anti-sauce, it makes food too like babyfood, ie easy to eat and tasty.

society middle-class, law-abiding society (and probably white). "We" are unquestionably a part of it.
stuffy middle-class in the wrong way
stylish posh (Again, posh people would never used this word.)

trendy middle-class
unspoilt (area of France) free of the wrong kind of Brits
unsuitable (boyfriend) common
urban working class (or black)

very English (eg Elgar) middle class. There’s a sneer in calling something “very English”. Implies: middle-aged, lives in shires, parochial, quaint, twee, old-fashioned, fusty, cosy. It's the opposite of diverse and vibrant – qualities valued by a different set of middle-class people. Perhaps composers like Edward Elgar (Grainger, Butterworth, Vaughan Williams) are tarnished by being used for nationalist rallying. But were they?

we, us middle-class people

You’re overqualified. You’re too posh (or too tall).
We think you’ll be bored. We think you’ll look down on us. (And you're still too tall.)