Euphemisms about Class in Quotes 2

Overstuffed

I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex and that the sort of pleasure one gets from finding the first primrose will loom larger than the sort of pleasure one gets from eating an ice to the tune of a Wurlitzer. (George Orwell)

Stefan Zweig was born into the comfortably overstuffed world of the Viennese bourgeoisie in 1881. (Guardian 2010)

It’s worth considering the use of euphemisms like “up-and-coming” to describe gentrification, displacement, unequal distribution of resources, increased policing, and so on. (slate.com)

Our home is not your “rural idyll” or “bolthole” right now. (Councillor Julia McKenzie March 2020)

Old money=rich or comfortable. New money=affluent or wealthy. Also, I've met some seriously rich people who claimed they were "middle class". (@Steenshorne)



One minister ... told me a while ago how much Johnson rated Sunak in cabinet meetings: how Sunak speaks "pithily and eloquently" while Javid takes a while to get to his point. (@elashton)

This is an interesting perspective. Sunak was educated at Winchester, Javid ... was not. I wonder if, in some circles, speaking "pithily and eloquently" translates in part as, "speaks in the sort of tone and style I'm used to". (@peterwalker99)

Yes, also watch for “authoritative”. (@janemartinson)

"Culture fit" in tech hiring literally means "fits in with white people." (@soniagupta504)

It's not just that, they're also verifying that you're of the right social class, in case they couldn't get enough class cues from your resume. (@alexkyllo)

For my company culture fit means you like to do stuff outside and recycle. (@I3Mtns)


WHO ARE "WE" AGAIN?
Boris Johnson’s father Stanley tells  @BBCr4today that the PM now needs to rest and that becoming ill has "served an amazing purpose in that it's got the whole country to realise this is a serious event". (@bbcnickrobinson)

When Stanley says 'the whole country' he of course means himself. It's the classic thing of assuming everyone thinks the same as you do. (@garius)
See also that MP who said “we only just now realise how important all those ‘unskilled’ workers are”. (@orhunt)

Alastair Sooke says the Elgin marbles “belong to everyone”. Meaning “us”. (@kieran_hurley)

That's why I always challenged any teacher, professor or anyone who used the phrase "for the greater good" when speaking of %'s in demographics. They literally committed and continue genocidal tactics so that Native numbers are low. (@redhaircrow)

More here, and links to the rest.

More euphemisms and political rhetoric here.

Euphemisms about Class (in Quotes)

Skegness too rough for Peroni. (Guardian, 22 April 2013)

Right. Politicians. Stop calling us "ordinary people". Got it? There's no such thing. Every one of us is extraordinary, don't you forget it. (@ColeMoreton)

A “civilised” (i.e. posh) festival, Rewind has 1980s pop, “glamping” and champagne bars. (The Week, May 2011)

I’m not “gritty”. I think it’s an almost racist term “Oh, he’s a Scouse working-class lad. He has to be gritty”. (Jimmy McGovern)

We should be championing policies that help people on low incomes and help working people. (Boris Johnson, March 2015)

Interesting how the various Labour leadership favourites are using "wealth creators" to indicate business owners, not their employees. (Daniel Trilling ‏@trillingual)

"Unlike me, who was totally unguarded, she’s guarded by family, friends and comfort” – by which she means money. (April Ashley on Caitlyn Jenner)

Estate agents, the foot soldiers of the housing boom, armed with shiny new catalogues, describe the area as “vibrant” and “edgy”. This is estate-agent speak for “visible signs of poverty nearby”. (Guardian May 2015)

Been told that fox hunts are actually attended by "very ordinary country folk". (@matthaig1)

Clinton will support everyday Americans, whatever that means (Winston Smith ‏@Globalidentity)

Hillary Rodham Clinton calls them “everyday Americans.” Scott Walker prefers “hardworking taxpayers.” Rand Paul says he speaks for “people who work for the people who own businesses.” Bernie Sanders talks about “ordinary Americans.” (NYT)

Stanley Anderson RA drew scenes of London's bustle. (Working-class life, understood.)

More euphemisms in my mini ebook Boo & Hooray – see sidebar.

More here, and links to the rest.
Picture by Diamond Geezer.

How to Be Ever So Genteel

How does lower middle-class Jen Teale talk? She likes to find a nice name for everything and doesn't mind borrowing terminology from adverts, promotional literature or even (shudder) the Americans. The middle class equivalents are in brackets.

a selection of… (too unspecific, avoids listing eg cheeses with foreign names in case they make you feel uneducated)
amenities (word used by PR people trying to sell you a holiday in Teignmouth)
appropriate
available

backside (euphemistic)
beaker (toothmug)
bedspread (for a bedcover, quilt or throw)
beverages, a selection of hot, “dispensed” from a machine
bin (wastepaper basket)
botty (bottom)
briefs (pants - except everyone says pants now)
buggy (for baby buggy – American)

cardy (obsolete)
carrier (carrier bag or bag)
carton (word invented by manufacturer, too French in the wrong way, like serviette and crayon)
centres as in chocolates with mint centres (filling)
classical music (music)
close (stuffy)
collection (of Lladro figures or commemorative thimbles)
colourful (too generalised)
comfortable (I don’t feel comfortable with that)
condiment (pepper and salt, mustard, oil and vinegar)
cookbook (cookery book - cookbook is American)

cooked breakfast (breakfast - It’s assumed you have a buffet of grilled kidneys, kedgeree, porridge etc laid out in the breakfast room of your stately home.)

couch (Upwards rest on a sofa or chaise longue (not lounge), Weybridges sit on a settee, Nouveau-Richards recline on a divan)

counterpane (see bedspread)
crayon
creepy crawly (insect)
crispy (crisp)
cuddly toy (baby talk)
curvy

dentures (false teeth)
dessert (pudding)
diced vegetables (Upwards don’t dice things, they chop them up - but not into neat square cubes)
diddy (small)
dinette (obsolete, sadly)
dips (too nonspecific)
dishwasher (washing-up machine - “dishes” is American)
divan (see couch)
dunk

ellie (elephant)
ever so

fitted units
for the minute (for the moment)
fragrant
fresh
fully licensed, fully lined

gift (present)
gilet
goodness (ad speak and too vague)
grand opera (opera)
hottie (hotwater bottle)

housecoat (no one wears them any more – they have central heating. Unless they’re trying to save money/the planet and cuddle up in a slanket.)

jerkin
jumper (jersey)

kitchen units (everybody says units now, and has them in their kitchen, though it’s still naff to have wall units)

kitchen/diner (diner is American)
kitchenette
knickers (pants)
knits, knitwear (term invented by people trying to sell you the stuff)

leisure activities (name them)
lemon (yellow)
lightweight (raincoat)
lilac (purple)
lounge: sitting room (lounges have morphed into “open-plan living areas”)

matching set
mauve (purple)
meal (specify lunch, dinner)
mules (slippers)

navy (navy blue)
newest silhouette
notepaper (recalls sets of notelets with pallid flowers on them)
nuptials: wedding

odour: smell
of your choice

op (somehow goes with those other medical terms, “slip” off your clothes and “pop” on the couch.)

open-face sandwiches (smorgasbord)
ovenware

packet of (some)
panties

pantyhose (tights - obsolete, but there was an awful fuss about what to call them when they took over from stockings, even though ballet tights had been around for years and were called “tights”)

park home (caravan)
pastry (for bun, turnover, slice etc.)
pendant (Sam might excruciatingly call it a dingle dangle or be specific and call it a jade butterfly.)
pillow slip (pillow case)
plate (false teeth - far less common now, thank goodness)
plump (overweight)

polo (polo neck/polo-necked jersey)
poorly (ill)
pop on (put on, get on)
portion (helping)

pullover (Sam says jersey for anything woolly which doesn’t undo down the front. She doesn’t call anything a pullover, jumper, popover, sweater or slipover.)

pully (woolly pully)

reclining chair
refreshments (food)

relatives (for relations as in people you are related to. It’s genteel to call sexual relations “relations”, but then you can’t use the same word for your sister’s cousins nieces.)

Santa Claus, Santa (Father Christmas - Santa Claus is American)
scatter cushions (cushions - what you do with them is your business)
select (choose)
serve with

serviette (are all words ending in “ette” pretentious? dinette, banquette, leatherette, moist towelette, colognette, pochette. French in the wrong way again.)

serving suggestion
serving (helping)
set (luggage set)
shade (colour)
silky (silk)
similar to (like)
sink (basin, washbasin)
situate

slacks (trousers - but no one wears slacks any more)
slim
slip (v)
slip cover
slip on (put on)
slip (petticoat)
slipover
snack
speeding (exceeding the speed limit - speeding is American)
sporty
squash (drink)
spring break
steps (ladder)
stitching (sewing)
street light (lamp post, street lamp)
stroller (pushchair)
suite, en (bathroom/loo)
suite, three-piece: sofa and chairs
sweater (jersey)

tablets (pills)
teatowel (drying up cloth)
throw (like gilet, a word made up by advertisers and manufacturers and as such deliberately classless)
toddler (small child, but surely no worse than sproglet?)
toilet roll (loo roll/loo paper/lav paper)
toilet (loo)
toiletries
top (blouse, shirt, jersey, teeshirt)
topped with
track(y) bottoms (tracksuit bottoms - at least no one says sweat pants any more)
trim, slim (slender)

underwear
undies
unsightly (ugly)
upset, emotional (Upwards have no word for this because you’re not allowed to be. Unless it’s “hysterical”.)

valance (Upwards don’t have them because they don't want to hide the legs of their furniture with a frill.)

vanitory unit (washbasin)
vanity bag (makeup bag)
vehicle (car)
vinegarette (vinaigrette)
violet (purple)

wash-hand basin (basin, washbasin. Definitelies call it a sink.)
welly boot (welly/Wellington/Wellington boot)
wipe-clean
woolly (jersey, cardigan)
worktop (work surface)
wrap
wrapper (printed on the wrapper)

More Euphemisms

Leafy suburb

“Look at inner city. Once merely a descriptive term to distinguish a core urban area from the surrounding suburbs, it has become a code word for 'the place where unemployed black people on welfare, living amid the drug trade and homicides, send their children to bad schools and the penitentiary.' The inner city is contrasted with the tree-lined streets of leafy suburbs, meaning 'the place where affluent white people live and where the writer lives, or would like to.' Contrast leafy suburbs with any place described as hardscrabble, which indicates 'usually rural area or place in flyover country where working-class or poor white people struggle to get by'. (The Baltimore Sun, January 2013)

be yourself: don’t copy Kevin and Tracey from down the road

brands: Decipher expert says ABs shopping at Primark while CDs buy aspirational brands. The Times, Oct 29 2011 (Meaning that the best upper sets are saving money by shopping for clothes at budget store Primark, while the less well-off buy branded merchandise by Armani, Louis Vuitton etc. Top people may buy Cath Kidston and Boden but in some mysterious way these are not “brands”.)

civilised: A “civilised” (i.e. posh) festival, Rewind has 1980s pop, “glamping” and champagne bars. (The Week, May 2011)

educated: middle class

emerging neighbourhood: embourgeoisement, gentrification

fine dining: linen tablecloths and obsequious waiters

from all walks of life: all classes

grinding chaos: other people (“I hate the noise, the dirt, the fumes and the grinding chaos." Politician Ian Duncan Smith on living in London, March 2013)

he rose from a humble or non-academic background: working-class background – it must have been if he “rose” from it

heavy, heavily: code for vulgar décor (“The rooms, though heavy with brocade swagged curtains…” redonline.co.uk “The tablecloths are heavy with starch.” Daily Mail, May 2012 “Heavily decorated chiffonniers inlaid with of mother of pearl.” frenchprovincialmag.com)

hysteria about paedophilia: using the word “paedophile”. (Only chavs say “paedophile”. Chavs are hysterical about paedos. We have legitimate concerns about child molesters.)

idyll: middle-class cosiness, flight from reality

intelligent: Men like to say that they find intelligence attractive. This means “not an Essex girl, won’t show me up in public”. Middle class, in fact.

It's only the poor and the posh who “breed”. (Andy Lewis/@lecanardnoir)

locals: yokels

man, woman, girl: In Agatha Christie, if characters refer to people as “the man Archer” or “that girl Amy”, it means Archer and Amy are working class. Same goes for “a woman called Mary Smith”.

mannered (of an actor’s performance): posh

our absurdly risk-obsessed society: We had a teensy fire at our house and firemen and paramedics turned up and started telling us what to do!

petty bourgeois: lower middle class (They’re soooo petty! Actually it’s “petit” and it just means “small”.)

popular culture: working-class culture

potential: “The middle classes are leaving the state sector in droves… partly because they think their children will be mixing with pupils who will not help their child reach full potential.” (Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, reported in the Evening Standard, Nov 23 07)

product of the northern club circuit: working class (Telegraph piece on Frank Carson explains, Feb 2012)

reality TV: common people getting on television

regional accents: the Home Counties (around London) are not a “region”. (Viewers switch off the One Show because the presenters are from the northeast and Wales. Or do they just say they do?)

regional: working-class (Regions are where “we” aren’t.)

rentier class: always petty like the bourgeoisie (from Marxism?)

rough: working-class (Skegness too rough for Peroni, Guardian, 22 April 2013)

run-of-the-mill: people we are superior to

rural idyll: chav-free zone (“Why is the rural idyll I call home voting for Marine Le Pen?” Independent headline April 30, 2012)

social mobility: upward social mobility

There are certain standards!: I am a snob.

very ordinary people: working-class people (writer to The Times explaining that it’s not just middle-class Anglicans from the south who sing in choirs)

we, us: middle-class white people

More here.

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.)