How do you define being Common !!!

Yes, that's what I thought - a bit like 'Blessed are the meek...'

Quite! No way! The opposite! If I'm bigoted, it's against bigots!
I HAVE to have cleaners. I can't do it myself. Due to arthritis and poor balance!
On the other hand, I am contributing to the employment situation, by employing a cleaner, a gardner and a taxi driver!

jeni - see Petallus's post. 'Beigeous' seems to be a neologism for those who fade into the background, or at least that's what I think it means.

Not having cleaners (that'll be me then )

Blessed are the bigoted, jeni?

Surely not.... (I hope!)

And chambers! Did you mean bigoted?
Are you using an iPad?
Mine has not been domesticated yet and insists it knows better than me!

eating pies\pasties in a bag while drinking from can walking down the road.

If we use a word often enough will it make it into the OED? Should we contact Susie Dent and ask about the chances of 'beigeous' being accepted?

The beigeous may be blessed - but are they happy?

It is not often I come across a totally new word, but 'beigeous' has defeated me - and google!

I remember lectures from the nuns about how to sit like a lady - meaning how to pretend we had no sexual parts!

I don't mind being common - at least some of the time. Being overly concerned with not being so can can have a deadening effect on the spark of life. I read somewhere:

Blessed are the beigeous!

Pogs, I don't think anyone is going to argue with your statement that all kinds of people can be rude and insensitive. (But,of course, a gentleman or lady is never inadvertently rude!)

Is'nt common basically the same as breading or class. Being common means different things to different people. Take swearing for example it is used by all of the classes but we forget that. Roots showing, peroxide blondes are also in all classes. It's how a person inacts with other human beings that does shed some degree of class or 'commonness'. Do you put your cigarette out on the floor or in an ashtray?. Do you swear in front of children?. Do you wear your clothes without showing your backside or roll of fat because your top is too short?. Are you polite to people, trust me those of you who think you are not common can have a tendancy to be very rude to others.

Being common is a trait, a way of life. It also implies lack of breeding or class but I have been in the company of both common and upper-class company and believe you me I have found both can be just as horrifying.

My mother was horrified when I had my ears pierced at the age of 17. She told me it was common and "only costermongers had pierced ears". (There were, of course, masses of costermongers living in middle class, leafy West London suburbs in the 1960s.) I was stuck for an answer and the only response I could come up with was "The Queen has pierced ears," which stopped my mother in her tracks. I would guess that the Queen probably has, given the range of royal jewels, but I don't actually know, even now.

I used to wish my mother wore a hat and gloves like the posh mothers. When I was older, I realised that she was a true lady, because she never thought anyone was above her or below her. She treated everyone in the same kind way. I felt ashamed that I had been such a little snob.

don't think anyone would pay attention these days but my mum used to think our neighbour was "common as muck" because she smoked in the street.

Apparently ladies only smoked behind closed doors

Our house used to be a very noisy house, we had a piano, an organ, four guitars, a violin and three keyboards with usual amplifiers. Now we have an empty nest and just the piano

Jeni it was Rugby. Probably not near to Wednesbury.

Our rag and bone man once gave us baby chicks, a couple just tossed into a brown paper bag. They didn't last long. The dog got one and my mother trod on the other in her high heel. I was only about three but I can still see the poor little fluffy yellow creature, squawking and writhing on the lino with mum's heel through it's middle.

Erghh! Thinking about that makes me want a cup of tea so I'm off to make one.

Polish? Isn't that a foreign language

And polished lovingly...

Looks nice in the corner?

It's not the size of the harp, Jeni, it's what you do with it!

And I don't do 'class' I am what I am. Take me or leave me!

I used to play the violin in my salad days!

Don't worry, jeni, you just add a bit of class to our forum!
I believe a harp is one of the hardest instruments to play.