Breakdown of class barriers

Oh as for class barriers - I reckon the famous John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbet sketch says it all:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k1iRD2f-c

Not sure how class works in the UK these days though - I left in 1979.

Stepmother used to refer to a woman who married a widower:-

[Old English steop-, with connotations of "loss," in combinations like steopcild "orphan," related to astiepan, bestiepan "to bereave, to deprive of parents or children," from Proto-Germanic *steupa- "bereft" (cf. Old Frisian stiap-, Old Norse stjup-, Swedish styv-, Middle Low German stef-, Dutch stief-, Old High German stiof-, German stief-), literally "pushed out," from PIE *steup-, from root *(s)teu- (see steep (adj.)

Etymologically, a stepfather or stepmother is one who becomes father or mother to an orphan, but the notion of orphanage faded in 20c. For sense evolution, cf. Latin privignus "stepson," related to privus "deprived.")]

But now it is also used when the father has remarried and the mother is still alive.

I like Gary Slapper's name. If Barbara Cartland knew she was being tweeted about by a slapper she would turn in her grave.

Ah. I thought one's own mother had to be dead, not just divorced. I don't think my DDs one and two regard MrBags as their stepfather. I don't think he does either.

Mind you, I don't think they'll regard him as their stepfather even if their own father dies first. He isn't really a father figure to them and never has been, though they are all on perfectly friendly terms and always have been.

I don't think the mother being alive stops you being a step-mother.

Yes, that's right. So now I've a question for people who know such things: what is one's father's second (or subsequent) wife's formal relationship, if any, to her husband's offspring from his first marriage, if the first wife is still alive.

In short, can you really have a mother and a stepmother at the same time?

I thought Diana's mother was still alive when Diana was in the news. Maybe my brain isn't working yet either. My point being that Raine wasn't a stepmother, just Diana's father's second wife.

I think I need to check....!

Her daughter (Raine) was Diana's stepmother.

Wasn't she related to Diana's family? Or maybe my brain's not up and running yet..

I think she was a bit batty.. all that pink froth and crazy eye makeup! I have read she was snobby. By which I mean she thought some groups of people to be inferior to herself and revered those she perceived to be higher up the 'social scale' regardless of there actual behaviour.

Good idea to be rich to start with. Even better to make something of yourself rich or not. And the English are good at sneering at success especially in women. There are rows of pink paperbacks in my local library. She must have been onto something. I loved Georgette Heyerdahl in my teens.ipad strikes again Heyerrrrr ipad Heyer . It's learning my vocab.

Rich to start with. She was later.

She might have been a toff but my understanding is that she wasn't rich. And she did do her very successful best to make a living!

So the class barriers are still in place cos would you call her an old bat if she had risen from the darkest slums ,become a racing driver and made a fortune from chick lit or is it only because you perceive her as upper class Feetlebaum old bean? Americans would be saying go girl.

Seems one of the things he is is a law correspondent for the Times Online.

I don't know who Gary Slapper is either but the tweet made me smile so I shared it.

I was fascinated to find that the Clubhouse at Brooklands has a Barbara Cartland Room - seems the old bat was at one time a racing driver, and a campaigner for women's participation before WWII...

So -er - Gary Slapper (who?) has just discovered an old Barbara Cartland bon mot about the class system?

My brain is doing a Margot Leadbetter this morning Kitty.

I think we knew that Aka - hence the

But that's irrelevant I think.

She is dead.

I wondered too, Jess, but didn't mention it as it's early and I thought my brain hadn't caught up

I thought she was dead

You follow BC on Twitter? Is she still alive or is she tweeting from the big fluffy pink boudoir in the hereafter?
(or is it a joke )