Snobbery- many different forms

So true Oreo
🥂 🍻

Caleo

Big Louis, would you look askance at a cleaner who spoke with received pronunciation and exhibited a high level of educational attainment?

I have a good friend who speaks RP who was an cleaner for several years. She was a single mum working towards her doctorate.

Definitely a coffee snob.
As for shop-bought cakes.....well!

NotSpaghetti

Cressy - how I wish I went into a clothes shop (or wherever) and picked out the cheaper items.

Unfortunately, the fabrics I like are generally expensive so the end garment is always more. The drawer handles I like are more, the washbasins, the casement stays, the yarn, the bedlinen...

I went into a tile shop a few years ago and went straight to the one that was £3000 a square metre!

I am constantly compromising. I have a pretty modest budget.

Not sure where this puts me in the "snobbery stakes".

You’re like me then, champagne tastes and shandy money😂

I suppose in reverse if we hear someone with a plummy British accent here we tend to wonder what is wrong with them, or assume they are on holiday from the UK. 🧳

Can one buy a doorbell answerer that speaks in the accents of a Rottweiler or Doberman?

Big Louis, would you look askance at a cleaner who spoke with received pronunciation and exhibited a high level of educational attainment?

My parents would not have allowed me to be snobbish. However this is a snobbish world and others do judge me by how old I am, and how I use language, and even by my taste in clothing and home decor. Snobbery is a special form of stereotyping.

biglouis What is the accent of a cleaner?

I have had many cleaners, they have not all had the same accents.

Dottynan

I am a plastic bag snob. It has to be Waitrose or M and S. Nothing else bothers me

Plastic! Surely you’ve got Waitrose and M&S folding, fabric, re useable bags.

I am fortunate in that I can afford to buy what I like within reason and like Monica I buy locally produced meat and vegetables whenever possible and support our local shops over and above supermarkets.

This is not snobbery it’s being aware of the environment around you along with reaching the point that if I do not enjoy it, like it or have a valid use for something then it is not purchased.

Like Yammy I can do a range of regional accents - from broad Liverpool to RP English. I sometimes have a lot of fun with it on the phone pretending to be the cleaner/housekeeper.

My ring type doorbell now has a facility to respond in a male accent. I am looking forward to having fun with that one as well.

Forlornhope

Grandma70s ‘I’m a bit of a speech snob, but it’s selective. I don’t mind if a garage hand has a regional accent, but I don’t like it if a doctor has. I know that’s irrational, but it’s how I was brought up, I suppose.’

This puzzles me. Do you mean UK regional accents, or world wide regional accents given the rich mix of folk working in the NHS?

I'm definitely an accent snob.
If someone speaks to me in cut-glass English I answer back in the same only hamed up.
I have an accent for where I live and one for good friends and the best is the one I use at yam {home} with DH.
When in other areas we can talk in code our DD's use it as well.
When my friends want a laugh they ask me to talk like a neighbour who is like a poor version of the Queen." One's holly needs trimming before the birds consume the berries" being the best this year.

nanna8

Well you learn something everyday! I didn’t realise that there were different accents within Wales. So my ancestors from North Wales would have a different accent from the Southern Welsh? Fascinating. I do miss the differences and when I lived in the UK I could pick a few to the e act town. Not so here, though there are slight differences but more in vocabulary than accents. Anyway, I digress and back to snobbery- I used to have a snobby attitude towards females with Tatts but it is so common now it is melting away. I still don’t really like them,though. Two grandchildren have them but at least they are discreet ones.

Just within a few miles, nanna8!

People think of Richard Burton reading Under Milkwood - but just a few miles away the accent can be quite different.

Yes, that's it M0nica - liking things that happen to be great quality is not the same as choosing things because of brand or inflated price.

Preferring something because it is better quality and therefore more expensive is not snobbery.

Snobbery is preferring something because it is expensive and considering people who do not or cannot afford your taste in products, as lesser individuals.

I try to shop environmentally. This means I buy 'Pasture for Life' beef and organic lamb chicken etc, which is expensive. This is not snobbery, I do not look down on those who cannot or will not buy it. The same with trying to buy more clothes made from natural fibres from sustainable soureces. I do not buy supermarket bread because it chokes me, but baked bread from real bakers.

No snobbery about any of those I do them all for a reason and do not judge those who do not.

paddyann54

sorry that was to Grandma70's

Thank you for the apology Paddyann54. I have a particularly fine regional accent of which I am very proud.

Cressy - how I wish I went into a clothes shop (or wherever) and picked out the cheaper items.

Unfortunately, the fabrics I like are generally expensive so the end garment is always more. The drawer handles I like are more, the washbasins, the casement stays, the yarn, the bedlinen...

I went into a tile shop a few years ago and went straight to the one that was £3000 a square metre!

I am constantly compromising. I have a pretty modest budget.

Not sure where this puts me in the "snobbery stakes".

Grandma70s

My mother was a terrible coffee snob. I’m not. Instant is fine.

Some people would call me a music snob, because I really only like classical, but I don’t think a preference is snobbery.

I’m a bit of a speech snob, but it’s selective. I don’t mind if a garage hand has a regional accent, but I don’t like it if a doctor has. I know that’s irrational, but it’s how I was brought up, I suppose.

So you were brought up to be a snob? Well, like “everyone can learn RP”, everyone can learn not to be such a bigot.

These days you are lucky to see a doctor at all.

A. Lot of the things mentioned are about quality. It’s your money so you choose. I can’t drink cheap tea it tastes awful, so why not have what I do like? I just like a doctor I can understand.

Grandma70s

My mother was a terrible coffee snob. I’m not. Instant is fine.

Some people would call me a music snob, because I really only like classical, but I don’t think a preference is snobbery.

I’m a bit of a speech snob, but it’s selective. I don’t mind if a garage hand has a regional accent, but I don’t like it if a doctor has. I know that’s irrational, but it’s how I was brought up, I suppose.

That last paragraph…..so much snobbery in there ! 😱

On the subject of instant coffee, which brand do people like best?
And which carries the most class? If at all.
Well there is class, status and moral stance.

paddyann54

Forlornhope are you saying if the only doctor available to give you life saving treatment had a Glasgow accent (or other accent you consider downmarket) ,you would refuse to be treated.Simply because he didn't sound posh enough?
Now that is SNOBBERY of the worst kind.
I thought that attitude was dead and buried !
Surely we accept that people's accents doesn't equate to their intelligence or compassion or competence in their job ?

I’m sure you must know their is more than one Glasgow accent paddyann.

You do understand that people LIKE to keep their accents? I for one and I'm sure most folk I know dont want to have a a "standard english " accent or any other accent apart from the one I have which is West of Scotland and that accent hasn't hindered me in any way in life or in business