Snobbery- many different forms

I’m a manners snob. I was brought up on a council estate but in the 50s and 60s there were some very proud well mannered people and I was taught to be well mannered I gravitated then as now to these types. I can’t stand loud, shouty, aggressive people no matter what their background. I also avoid vulgar show offs. So yes I must be a snob

Can't resist adding this quatrain by John Collins Bossidy (a comment on New England aristos):

Here’s to dear old Boston,
Home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells speak only to Cabots,
And the Cabots speak only to God.

Perhaps a bit unfair on the Lowell's who produced three poets including Robert Lowell.

Grantanow

Someone (can't recall who) said s/he couldn't stand these snobs who go on about Mozart when they haven't even seen any of his paintings.

😂😂😂
I loved the dog in those films, Grantanow - or was that Beethoven?

It's only snobbery if someone looks down on another person because they think their tastes are inferior.

I’ve had that coffee, too, Deedaa. It was gorgeous but we were in Bali at the farm where they produced it so not too expensive. A bit cruel though, the way they keep the civets.

Yes I am a coffee snob. I always hated coffee until I went to Italy and discovered proper espresso. I have even (Only once because it is astronomically expensive) drunk the coffee made from the berries the civet cats eat. I has a wonderful flavour.

I like good cheese and cold meats. Preferably from Aldi or Lidl because why pay more if you don't have to? I shop for good clothes in my local charity shop because they last and continue to look good.

There are no laws against snobbery.

Grantanow 😂

😀😀😀Grantanow

Someone (can't recall who) said s/he couldn't stand these snobs who go on about Mozart when they haven't even seen any of his paintings.

Sorry, I am always transposing “I” and “o”. Therefore that should read “ not a form”

Look into the varied threads with regards to money. Many could be viewed as snobby, or perhaps nicely as just chit chat.

- How people afford beauty treatments, hair, nails, tats
- iPhones
- Holiday locations, cruises, holiday/vacation homes generally
- Cleaner, gardener, window washer, decorator - aka employed
- Dishwashers, dryers, hobs or soupmakers
- New autos or old bangers. Petrol or electric
- Academic degrees, firsts, fee based schooling
- Private insurance, pension
- Working mum or sahm (my favourite silly argument
- Homes to let (people need rentals or they'd purchase)
- Charitable or 'Victorian'
- Personal Preferences all.

I am a crockery snob I suppose, as I do so love good China cups or mugs and hate drinking out of the thicker crockery ones, I swear the tea or coffee tastes better from my China mugs!!! Does that make me a “Hyacinth Bouquet”??? Oh dear! Now I have read through this thread I realise I have quite a few if the more expensive preferences, like shoes, bedding etc, but I always just considered that was my appreciation of the better things in life, nit a firm of snobbery!

Just before Christmas I was at a local ‘do’ where, along with my two adult granddaughters, I was introduced to the father of an acquaintance of theirs.

Ignoring me, he immediately shook hands with the younger one, who is a fourth year med student at Kings and said, ‘Ah! So you’re the clever one!’

Cue a frosty silence while I gave him my Granny Death Stare but his face was a picture when he asked her sister, ‘And what do you do?’ and she replied, ‘Drugs in a field!’

No way was she prepared to discuss her own quite considerable academic achievements. with the rude man who scuttled off and avoided us for the rest of the evening 🤣🤣

Oh yes nanna8 we love Aldi wine. I remember watching an episode of Come Dine With Me once. There was a chap on who said he was a wine expert and could tell cheap wine from expensive. The host served him cheap supermarket red wine which he had poured into an empty expensive bottle. The 'expert' was singing its praises and waffling on about how you could tell it was a good one. Very funny.

I knew someone who would only speak to a select few people. I was not in that group. However, once she found out my son was an acedemic, suddenly I was included!
Ridiculous. I was still the same exact person!

Love it, Kate. I know quite a few ‘wine snobs’ and I had to laugh when one of them highly praised some Pinot Grigio we were drinking. It was about $8 from Aldis. They do a good wine. This bloke would turn his nose up at anything less than $30 normally.

Our son in law says he wouldn't eat anything from Aldi or Lidl. Well he does when he comes here, he just doesn't know it. We were at a barbecue recently. The hosts were quite wealthy. Son in law was tucking into several sausages. He asked the hosts where they were from as they were delicious. She replied 'Lidl'. His face was a picture.

A very Francophile and foodie BiL of mine - he’s lived there on and off, fluent speaker, etc., certainly used to be a terrible food snob. When we were all once staying at another BiL’s huge place in France, there was a big alfresco lunch party for friends and neighbours.

I volunteered to make various things, inc. my usual potato salad (with a little lemon juice, chopped chives etc.) which invariably disappears. However there wasn’t enough mayonnaise (Hellman’s or French jar equivalent) so I said I’d nip to the supermarket.

From hyper-foodie BiL’s reaction, you’d honestly think I’d said I was going to lace it with arsenic! NOOOOO!!!! He would make some proper mayonnaise!
OK then.
I don’t know what he did or didn’t do, but it was just oily and utterly tasteless, and despite dozens of guests, most of them French, much of my usually-vanishing PS went to waste.

I don’t mind admitting that I was exceedingly pissed off. The sheer waste, apart from anything else!

I do love that BiL, but another time I will stick to my pleb-mayonnaise guns!

nnanna8 Read back it should be clear.

To be honest, it was a relatively slight comment on this thread that has been the straw that broke this camel's back. But we get so much virtue signalling across GN and mostly it is aimed at interesting and amusing threads like this one and it often derails and ends them.

Ok M0nica if you promise not to do it yourself

I think it was my comment about how lucky we all are, nana8

Let's not take ourselves too seriously.

Just curious but who here is ‘virtue signalling’? I can’t say I have noticed on this particular thread. Others, maybe.

But why should chatty threads on material things be constantly disrupted and spoilt by Virtue-signallers?

It gives no aid to anyone living in poverty, the VS has no evidence, that I am aware of that, those taking part in a thread are not cognisance of the level of poverty to be found everywhere, and may well be working actively to allay it

. It is emotional bullying that does nothing to help those in poverty. Just enhances the VS's sense of being morally superior to the rest of the world.

I think it happens mostly on chatty threads which talk about material things M0nica.

Thanks M0nica I am with you on this as it is (surely?) a given that most of us do know we are the lucky ones in global terms - and yes, I for one often feel the need to say so in response to something.
Apologies all.

Somewhere could we have a moratorium on virtue signalling in almost every thread.

Whether is is reminding us how fortunate we are to have choice, regularly killing threads by telling us how lucky we are to be able to afford a pair of shoes, or that stupid phrase 'First world problem' (which is rarely correct).

Most GN members make it abundantly clear of their awareness of those less fortunate than themselves and we do have many threads that discuss these. So please can we have less of the virtue signalling in perfectly innocuous threads like this one.

Or possibly we could have some phrase that can be attached to a thread that indicates that we know and understand the problems of those less fortunate but would just like to flag these up and then have a discussion on some innocuous subject, without it constantly flagged up.

In my youth there was a saying 'The more he talked of his honour, the faster we counted the spoons (silver)', which meant essentially, the more someone paraded their virtue the more aware one was that that this might be being used to hide dishonesty.

I think the biblical description was 'whited sepulchres'.