Posh……..a compliment or an insult?

It's hard to put into words, glad you agree.

MissAdventure

Erm, a beautiful home, with tasteful, no doubt expensive, furniture, towels, crockery, and a tended, neat, expansive garden.

A sleek car, with a beautiful, leather interior.

A pedigree dog, as you would see at crafts- groomed immaculately, with silken fur.

My ideas of posh, I suppose.

Spot on Miss A that to me is POSH too.

M0nica

It is a put-down word, to devalue anyone who has anything you like but cannot afford.

Hence 'Ooh, that is a posh dress', 'they have a posh car', Oh you live in a pasoh area'.

Not a word I use, except in parenthesese

These are (in parentheses). You probably mean "in quotes".

Sorry. I had a posh education. :-)

For me - posh is a word to describe somebody who lives in a different world of wealth . Not praising or derogatory but just to explain that their expectations are very different to mine. for example a neighbour went to Austria for New Year's celebrations- I did not even go to another town in the UK. Posh to me means that those people never have known what it means to look after their budget or have ever faced poverty. It is all relative - in comparison I would be considered posh to a poor soul having to live on the streets.

A vompliment?
I think you've hit on a great word, there.

Vompliment

I have only heard the word as an adjective to describe a place for example:

What a posh hotel ..

It makes absolutely no difference what class anyone is, or if they're posh or common, to me.
Why would it?
Why should it?

So certainly no sneering, because I couldn't care less.

I take it as a compliment when people say I’m posh. I’m not stuck-up and very down to earth but I speak well and am classy (another word which no doubt divides opinion!)

At my comprehensive high school , my friends considered me posh because my dad worked in the city and drove a jaguar.
My dad was working class boy from a south London council estate who worked bloody hard . He said he got his aspirations from the wealthy couple he stayed with when he was evacuated during the war .

Shinamae Yes I have also heard that 'POSH' originated with the travelling on a ship, choosing the Port side to go Out and the Starboard side to come back Home, thereby choosing not to be travelling in the hot sun and keeping cool.

I don’t mind “posh”.
What bothers me more is the sneer when “middle class” is delivered!

Nor me.
When I first went to Scotland, the girl in the airport coffee shop screamed when I spoke.

I take 'posh to mean being better quality. Like living in a better area or having a more expensive car .
If a person is posh I take that to mean they talk more upmarket , not like me then

youtu.be/GWTs9SP3AIc?si=6o4zgfjHvNbRWtqF

Of course not
It was a carefully crafted affectation.
Just like Rees Mogg.

Nobody speaks like Kenneth Williams!

He sounds like Kenneth Williams (who came from a working class background) but he's much less funny.

I refuse to believe anyone speaks like that naturally.

As Allira said above, I associate the expression with accents and demeanour rather than wealth or status. If I was told someone was "frightfully posh" I would assume they probably spoke and behaved like Jacob Rees Mogg. The same expression could be used in a derogatory way to suggest they were somewhat effected and spoke with a plumb in their mouth. When used to describe cars it is usually complimentary but for restaurants or hotels it can indicate old fashioned and stuffy. It all depends on the nuance really.

Allira

Whitewavemark2

Rees-Mogg’s accent is an affectation. Absolutely no-one uses such a silly drawl.

I can't remember how his father spoke, was it in a similar way?

Jacob's maternal grandfather was a lorry driver. Not saying a lorry driver can't be posh, of course, before anyone picks me up on that.

It’s a way of speaking you often heard in the older generation, if you went to a public school it was drilled into you Rees-Mogg is not an exception
One GF may have been a truck driver but the Rees-Moggs have been “old money” for many generations.

I thought it was a Romany word for money? I don’t think my GC would use it, in fact it’s many years since I’ve heard it used

Whitewavemark2

Rees-Mogg’s accent is an affectation. Absolutely no-one uses such a silly drawl.

I can't remember how his father spoke, was it in a similar way?

Jacob's maternal grandfather was a lorry driver. Not saying a lorry driver can't be posh, of course, before anyone picks me up on that.

DH and I have always thought of ourselves a working class. We now have a comfortable lifestyle, through hard work. Having been brought up in a deprived family, I have always believed that education was a way out of poverty.
My parents wanted me out working and tried to discourage me from going to university, because people like us don't go to university.
However by self funding, while doing a number of part time jobs, I gained my degree.

During a conversation on Christmas Day, two of my children told me that their partners perceived us as posh, that my children's upbringing privileged, due to many foreign holidays and a lovely home.

I was stunned at this, for I have never seen myself as posh. I'm still the wee girl, who was humiliated dailly at my convent school, when I had to explain that I got free school meals, when the register was called..

As others have said, it means nothing.

Posh is a word that can be used in both contexts, complementary or derogatory, alongside many others also depending on the situation.

I'm very posh. I know that because people sometimes say it. I always just agree. Noblesse oblige