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Comment by aninhumer | Hacker News Reader

>The origins of the term are much older (before council houses in fact).

This may be true, but FWIW, the first time I heard the term it was introduced to me with a similar backronym. And not as some "isn't this awful classism" disclaimer, but as a gleeful denigration of the people it referred to. That there is an older etymology does not necessarily mean Jones invented the backronym.

>Actually I said chav because that group of loud, ridiculously dressed arseholes over there is starting to kick off

While I too have used the term, and feel like I was doing objection to genuinely unpleasant people, I remain suspicious of this argument, because it sounds a lot like "I don't mind black people, I just don't like black culture". A lot of what gets read as obnoxious is just cultural differences, and this is especially true of judgements like "ridiculously dressed".

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>> That there is an older etymology does not necessarily mean Jones invented the backronym.

It seems to originate with him, AFAICT, or at least at more or less the exact same time. And it fits his narrative suspiciously well.

I first heard the word 'chav' used a good decade before the book.

>> "I don't mind black people, I just don't like black culture".

I don't believe dressing and behaving like an arsehole are necessarily part of working class culture. I could be wrong. It's not my background, though it is my mother's and a variety of my friends'

Obviously not all working class people are part of the same culture, but I think the very fact that the stereotype of "Chav" exists beyond merely being obnoxious (since there are obviously obnoxious people who we wouldn't consider "Chavs") suggests there is a cultural component.

And it's when you say including aspects like clothing that the idea starts to sound classist. How exactly does someone "dress like an arsehole"? Is their clothing somehow inherently offensive, or do you just dislike it because it doesn't fit your own aesthetics, and/or because you associate it with a negative type of person?

'How exactly does someone "dress like an arsehole"?'

Just guessing, as a random sample of the ways some people choose to dress in the UK.

Wearing pyjamas and bathrobe in the supermarkt?

Wearing sports clothing despite looking like they don't ever actually do any sports?

Wearing trousers/jeans that don't go all the way up to the waist?

>> Is their clothing somehow inherently offensive, or do you just dislike it because it doesn't fit your own aesthetics, and/or because you associate it with a negative type of person?

The latter, the association. My aesthetics are questionable in various ways all by themselves. But associations are a different thing.

People pre-judge each other on clothing all the time, and people very often broadcast who they are and their group affiliations through clothing. If a pub is full of people in football shirts I'm probably not going in because it's not my sort of place. I have no desire to be around loud sports appreciation. It's not because I think they're beneath me but I know what to expect.

The question of class and chavs is an interesting one to some extent - I don't judge them because they are poor, working class people. It's the behaviour, the general poor education etc. I don't think it's wrong to judge this as bad, nor to associate particular behaviours and outlooks with clothing when there is an associated look - I'm an old goth, we definitely had our look and our commonalities.

Let's turn this around - a woman goes to the supermarket in her food-covered pyjamas, with a kid in tow, screaming at them to 'shuh uh!'. You're not going to make any judgement on that?

How's about a massive guy with long hair in a metal t-shirt and a denim waistcoat? No preconceptions?

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