Other British expressions also target various social groups in derogatory ways. But unlike one's skin color or sexuality, chavness is mostly a choice. Unlike "prole" or the American un-PC "trailer trash," it is a misconception that chavs are underprivileged.
Victoria Beckham is often dubbed the "Queen of Chav," achieving the double distinction of being both Posh and Chav. Chavs, by definition, are poor in culture and somewhat anti-intellectual. Their purchasing power affords them the brands that make up the chav style, the alcohol and tobacco essential to the chav way of life, the hair gel and heavy cosmetics of the chav look — but the chav doesn't spend a lot of time in school.
But according to him, watching our language will not change the way chavs are perceived. It is attributed to their individual characteristics, rather than to a deeply unequal society organised in favour of the privileged.
Dazed media sites. Skinwalkers: the creepy creatures terrifying TikTok. A new book claims the word "chav" is helping to reignite class war.
The journalist Polly Toynbee calls it "the vile word at the heart of fractured Britain". Recently a peer caused a kerfuffle when she tweeted about being stuck in "chav-land". So almost a decade after its emergence, is chav really the most divisive word in Britain, asks Tom de Castella. For some it has been a satisfying label to pin on Burberry check-wearing louts.
But for others, it's a nasty, coded attack on the working class. And for some commentators the word chav is now at the heart of Britain's obsession with class. There has been much discussion over the origin of the term.
The Romany word chavi - meaning child - was recorded in the 19th Century. Others argue it's from "Chatham average", a disparaging reference to the inhabitants of the Kent town. There have always been regional labels equivalent to chav - skangers, spides, charvers, scallies and neds, respectively in Ireland, Northern Ireland, North East England, North West England and Scotland.
But chav has somehow scaled regional barriers to become a national term of abuse. Driven by websites like Chavscum and Chavtowns, and soon picked up by the mainstream media, the word has also mutated into "chavtastic", "chavsters", "chavette", "chavdom".
A proposed connection to the town of Chatham, with which the word is linked in early citations, seems dubious—see the evidence and etymology in Oxford English Dictionary , 3rd edition. See more words from the same year. Chavannes, de.
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