My euphemism is less insulting than your euphemism

Fuzzy has quite accurately summarised part of our dinner discussion about the word “chav” and why it might/might not be offensive.

We both thought the recent commentators had missed the point, by claiming that “chav” was a derogatory term for the whole working class – because it really isn’t – it’s a derogatory term for the working class that have enough money to start appropriating the brands and markers of the upper class (Burberry, Louis Vuitton etc) so it’s really a way of making sure we can all identify the upstarts.

(When I was a kid I went to a terribly, terribly posh school populated almost entirely with Embassy brats with double-barreled surnames – they used to refer to people who were NQTD “not quite top drawer” in the same way.)

Getting back to my point – Chav is just a euphemism – in the same way that NQTD was a euphemism, and they come and go – ban one word, because it’s insulting, replace it with a new word and over time, the new word will be used in an insulting manner…

Think about

• “Retarded”
• Special Olympics”
• “Differently abled”
• “xxx Challenged”

At some point all of these were the polite terms – they replaced the offensive, and, over time, became offensive themselves.

As Fuzzy says – it’s all just sound waves, it’s not the word that’s the problem – it’s the way it’s used. So perhaps we should worry less about whether the word “chav” is offensive, and worry more about teaching people manners.