What in your view is common ?

OK, I will givei it a go. Programmes like 'Love Island' are really common, aka trash.

Blackpool
Lots of brightly coloured flowers in a garden were once considered vulgar. Pale flowers were the thing as in Vita Sackville West’s white garden.

The comments about red shoes triggered a memory. I wore red shoes for tap dancing and loved them, Tap dancing, however, was considered common by my mother, and I tended to agree. The reason I did it was that half an hour of tap was tacked onto the hour of ballet I did twice a week. Ballet, of course, was not common.

I was good at ballet but extremely bad at tap.

As a Glaswegian we use Gallus not common .some of our east coast Grannies might say all Weegies are common ...but Gallus is someone who is a bit bold or aggressive ,or dresses in bad taste.My godmother was banned from bringing her now husband home because he wore sandshoes/plimsolls
.In our house chewing gum was common/gallus .
As the example implies, someone who acts in a gallus manner is usually doing something that they shouldn’t be; formative usage of the word was more condemnatory in nature, refering to someone of dubious character who was fit to be hung from the gallows.

In contemporary terms, it can also refer to someone who does something in a stylish or exemplary manner; quite a turnaround for an adjective that would nowadays sooner see you wearing a medal, rather than a noose.

But it's very common to say people are snooty or stuck up!

Maybe the opposite of common in this instance is snooty or stuck up.

Eating with your mouth open
Talking with food in your mouth
Using your fork like a shovel
All the instructions I gave my offspring as being 'common'
Bless them, they do eat nicely now!

It was white stillettos that were common when I was growing up
Ankle bracelets (only prostitutes wore them)
A headscarf over your hair in rollers
wearing an overall or apron outside the house
fisher lasses (They worked in the frozen food factory)
According to my mum!
And I started off in Hull

FannyCornforth

One of my favourite songs from the 90’s is ‘Common People’ by Pulp.
Sheer poetry and a total banger to boot !

You’d get on well with my DH, he absolutely loves this song and when I listen along with him I can see that it is not only very listenable but has very clever lyrics. Did you know there was a programme on BBC iPlayer featuring Jarvis Cocker in which he tried to find out the name of the girl he wrote it about? ‘She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge; she studied sculpture at St Martins college’ - brilliant.

Sago, I was amused that your list included dahlias. My parents would have said the same. How on earth did this particular snobbery arise, I wonder? How can a flower be common?

My son, blissfully unaware of their reputation, grows the most beautiful dahlias.

Lol. I remember being admonished by the headteacher of my sons school because I was wearing red shoes. ??. Bloody cheek. I was a parent, not a pupil.

One of the best things I ever read about class distinctions was "The Sloan Rangers Official Handbook". Hilarious and very observant.

My mother’s list:
Street parties,
The Orange Lodge
Pierced ears
Neighbours gossiping outside in the street, etc etc.
Sago love your ending up in Hull!?

Chewbacca

Doodledog apparently, the "upper classes" put milk in the teacup first because their teacups were only of the finest bone china and so therefore more likely to break when boiling tea was poured in. Whereas the "lower classes" had thicker cups that could withstand the sudden influx of boiling tea and so they added their milk after.

That's interesting, and at leas makes some sort of sense. I thought that milk first was meant to be 'common', not that I care .

Chewbacca

Doodledog apparently, the "upper classes" put milk in the teacup first because their teacups were only of the finest bone china and so therefore more likely to break when boiling tea was poured in. Whereas the "lower classes" had thicker cups that could withstand the sudden influx of boiling tea and so they added their milk after.

Oh, yes, my DM advised me to put a teaspoon into the cup when pouring tea to avoid cracking the delicate eggshell china.

Doodledog apparently, the "upper classes" put milk in the teacup first because their teacups were only of the finest bone china and so therefore more likely to break when boiling tea was poured in. Whereas the "lower classes" had thicker cups that could withstand the sudden influx of boiling tea and so they added their milk after.

I think words like 'lounge' and 'couch' are old-fashioned now rather than class markers
Yesterday I heard my DD mention something about moving the lounge around and worried that she meant knocking a couple of walls down.
Lounge is the name for a couch/settee/sofa/Chesterfield in the Australian language ?

Sago

Chewbacca Red shoes were regarded as sinful as well as common, had I bought home a girlfriend in red shoes my mother would have had all of the Catholic Mothers Union praying for my redemption.
The friend in red shoes would of course end up in Hell.

High heeled red shoes worn with fluorescent socks

Yes! A girl I knew at school had a sister who wore that combination and she was, apparently, a total embarrassment to her rather staid sister!

Aveline

Thanks for posting Doodle and Shirley. Yes it's dated but so am I and I remember these fine distinctions being made at the time.

I think many still are, although fewer people have cooks these days .

The obsession with whether people put milk in the cup before or after the tea always makes me laugh, as it's so obviously something designed as a trap - there can't be any reason why it matters. I prefer milk added to the tea, so that you can see what colour the finished drink is going to be and adjust accordingly, but why it is seen as a marker of 'class' is a mystery.

I think words like 'lounge' and 'couch' are old-fashioned now rather than class markers, although I'm sure the Granthams of Downton wouldn't use either. I remember people saying them in my childhood (as I'm common ), but nowadays everyone seems to have sofas in their sitting rooms, as do I. I suspect that has more to do with advertising than a sharp increase in social mobility though.

I find these things interesting, but can't take them seriously at all. I don't think I ever had requisites in my toilet (or loo, lavatory or carsie), and I wouldn't know how to go about getting any.

Rather hilariously a typo occurred in the previous post stating “the friend in red shoes would end up in Hull” ????

Chewbacca Red shoes were regarded as sinful as well as common, had I bought home a girlfriend in red shoes my mother would have had all of the Catholic Mothers Union praying for my redemption.
The friend in red shoes would of course end up in Hell.

Sago ???

Doodledog and Shirley48
Thank you

My favourite song about knowing your place was Kick the Cat sing by the Spinners
“Oh it is hard you will agree, to know your place in Britain’s meritocracy . . .

No one below you, fancy that
your only consolation is to kick the cat!”

Too much obvious make up, blatantly bleached hair and eating in the street were my parents’ ideas of common, oh and babies with pierced ears or women with ‘Bet Lynch’ earrings, though how I was supposed to know what they were when we didn’t have a television, who knows?
Never associated it with the Wombles as we knew Wimbledon Common as a big park.

Sago your mother's list sounds eerily familiar. Were red shoes on her list too; especially red shoes with ankle straps? far too common I've never been able to wear red shoes to this day!

Thanks for posting Doodle and Shirley. Yes it's dated but so am I and I remember these fine distinctions being made at the time.