Answer for: What kind of gum do you chew?
#18 Chewing gum is a vulgar habit of the lower orders
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Are you confusing mastication with masturbation?
(I know you are not, but I just like to use the word mastication whenever I get the opportunity)
Masturbation is what many people do though they deny it - class does not come into it. The mastication of sticky stuff is what some people do too, no matter what their class. Only the lower orders masticate gum. If a rich, intelligent person from the middle or upper classes chews gum, it is because they have sluttish tendencies and their spawn will no doubt descend to their true level in a generation or two, if not immediately.
It is no good calling me a snob and expecting me to feel about it. Of course I am a snob, I am English and proud of it.
Straying from the subject here a bit but are you suggesting that anybody from England is automatically a snob?
Of course - it is almost inbred, no matter what individuals might say to the contrary. England is a class conscious, class driven society.
I hate to be the bringer of bad tidings but your vision of England is a little outdated. The class system is not what it once was (thank goodness).
Snobbery (by my definition at least) is looking down at groups of people and regarding them as inferior. How can someone in this day and age judge whole "classes" of people as inferior just because of their standing? It is ridiculous to assume that just because someone is born into a "working class family" they have a low IQ or other attribute that makes you feel some how superior to them.
Please don´t try and keep this antiquated stereotype alive because there are some of us that don´t agree with it and certainly don´t fit into it.
I'm sorry but I am afraid that many people do still feel this way about class. Agreed, it is not Victorian England anymore, but whilst there has been a move towards meritocracy, there is a huge feeling that there are people who are "like us" and people who are not. This is true in every class in English society. Ill feeling about other classes still exists, I hear it all the time. Whether or not this is good or bad is immaterial - it exists as a fact. People tend to stick with their own kind (as they perceive it) socially. Where there is some movement in terms of class is in the work place. It is common to see people of working class origin in managerial positions for example and people of middle class origin working for them. This is commonest in the towns and cities - in the countryside less so. But the middle class worker generally has middle class friends and would think twice before inviting his/her working class boss to a dinner party. Celebrity is another area where class divides have broken down somewhat. Working class celebrity status is what a lot of working class children admire and would like for themselves. Most are not interested in the usual bourgeois achievements of a salaried, professional job, or the education or lifestyle that goes with it. Even if some are, they do not believe they can achieve it because they think they would be held back because of their working class origins. They would be right.. The educated middle classes laugh at working class celebrities and refer to them as chavs. This is class based opinion - nothing to do with money. For the middle classes, money earned as a footballer or as boxer does not have the same (high) status as money earned as a city lawyer even where the footballer's earnings may be ten times that of the lawyer's.
Government policy aimed towards education for the mass of working class people is an attempt at breaking down class divides and achieving a true meritocracy. The very fact that they have such policies and act on them is an admission that there is a class system in this country.
There will always be class distinction where there is a difference in outlook, lifestyle, education, values and attitudes. Difference makes people feel uncomfortable - they seek others similar to themselves. Difference where it appears to challenge perceived views about what is the "right way" of being is often feared, leading to dislike or hatred. An example:
The current Labour government has a housing policy that requires house builders to provide x amount of social housing in any new housing estate they build. This is social engineering and it happens because there is the perception that there is a class system and it would be better to break it down. Builders hate it and they resist it as bad for business. They say that the richer people will not wish to live next door to people who are poorer and from a different class and this will discourage purchase of new homes. The fact that they believe this to be true is evidence for its being true. I have also heard many conversations where this policy has been discussed and well-heeled people invariably say they would not buy a new house if they knew that their cleaner was living cheek by jowl with them. To you, this may be snobbery of the worst kind, I call it preserving a set of values and living a life undisturbed by behaviours of others I find unpleasant. It is not just me - many people are saying these things in 2008. It demonstrates that the class system in England still exists.
Each to their own, by that I mean their preference not their class ;)
I´m just happy that the whole class system is steadily but surely breaking down.
May be it is breaking down - I'm not sure though. Perhaps it is simply changing its appearance and re-grouping.