Posh……..a compliment or an insult?

Crossstitchfan

petra

Deedaa

I upset a lady I know by telling her about a house I had taken a parcel to. I said 'It's one of the posh ones with a double garage" "But I've got a double garage!" she said, looking rather offended. Having heard about some of the holidays she goes on I think some people would consider her posh.

Why would you say it’s posh because it has a double garage 🤷‍♀️
Genuine question.

Might it be because it implies two cars in the family?

Everyone at my school seemed posher than me.
Even those who lived in little houses like ours, because their Dads had cars. We all rode Raleigh bikes.

I suppose I must be posh now because we have a double garage and two cars (which never go in the garage because it's full of DH's junk).

Thinking back I don't think we were allowed to use it, when I was a child. I may remember this wrongly, but I think I was told that only snobbish people used the word, and that it was not nice to be a snob.

Oddly enough, we were allowed to say that soemthing was fantouche, which I understood to mean about the same as posh.

So what is the non vacuous contrast.
What does it mean to speak badly?

It means you speak badly.

It's no reflection on the rest of your life.

Not a compliment in my book

Lots to choose from POSH
/pɒʃ/adjective
elegant or stylishly luxurious.
"a posh hotel"
Similar: smart, stylish, upmarket, fancy, high-class, fashionable, chic, luxurious, luxury, deluxe, exclusive, select
sumptuous, opulent, lavish, grand, rich, elegant, ornate, ostentatious, showy, high-toned, upscale, classy, swanky, snazzy, plush, plushy, ritzy, flash, la-di-da, fancy-pants, swish, swank, swagger, swell, sprauncy,

adverbinformal•British in a refined or upper-class way.
"he may talk posh, but there is nothing fancy about Basil"
nouninformal•British
the quality of being elegant, stylish, or upper class.
"we finally bought a colour TV, which seemed the height of posh"
verbinformal•British

AuntieE I had to look up fantouche.
I see it is a Spanish word meaning puppet or loud mouth.

Fantouche is a lovely word! I also like Kenspeckle. Both drawing attention to a person.

"My sister Violet.. the one with a Mercedes, swimming pool and room for a pony"! 😊

TattyBluebell

"My sister Violet.. the one with a Mercedes, swimming pool and room for a pony"! 😊

😁

Posh is what they call you when you speak differently to them. I'm often told I'm posh simply because I don't speak the local dialect and tend to pronounce my words instead of saying "fings like what we does". It's never said in a nasty way.

At school we were forbidden from using lots of words. I don’t recall posh being amongst them but some of the banned words and terms I recall were belly, shut up, nice, cake hole, was what, somebody/anybody/nobody.

Our neighbour bought (or leased) a BMW SUV. He offered to drive us to a party we'd all been invited to.
"Ooh", I said. "Yes please. Putting on my posh frock and going for a ride in your poshmobile, what more could I wish for?"
That is to say, it's a word I would use ironically.
And I have been told that port out starboard home was never really a thing.

A work colleague (young man) once told me he thought I was posh - when I asked how he came to that conclusion he said it was because I lived in a village in a cottage!!

MissAdventure

Me too.
It's of a real man I met, years ago.

Sounds Italian.

I was amused when a friend introduced me saying “She sounds posh, but she’s not”.
She knew my history, inner city near the docks (slums) and married up (young).

I’m not a snob, but I am an elitist.

An elitist in taste, not politically.

I'm sure it can be used as either, or neither. People not only use language in different ways but have different value systems. To some people money and material possessions are their main source of status and identity. To others those things are derisory or irrelevant. Some people use language as a specific way of presenting themselves to the world and showcasing their values. Many simply want to express their thoughts and feelings and opinions in a non-judgemental manner and don't worry too much about their mode of expression.
I find it interesting to see the different takes within one thread. It always makes me smile to see definitive answers that suggest an opinion is fact.

He was Irish, hollysteers
That beautiful accent...

JaneJudge

like butter knives and desert wine

How about caviare spreaders? A set of 6 were actually on a wedding present list we once received - mother of pearl handles, £45 per knife, and this was over 20 years ago! I asked the wedding list person at the shop (Harrods, naturally 😂) whether anyone ever actually bought the things. He was laughing as much as I was!

I would never associate that word as an insult. To me it means refined, elegant or upper class. Even though we live in a supposedly classless society, there are certain things, or ways of doing things that denote higher society but not necessarily achieved with more money.

For instance, a posh part of town may not necessarily be the wealthiest part of town. Large well kept lawns with elegant black cars compared to glass and cement mansions with flashy red sportscars.

'Port out, starboard home' was based on travel by boat to India etc. It meant you were rich enough to pay for cabins on the shady side of the boat. This made a difference on a long journey.

Im 72. I was born in Essex. Both my parents were Geordies. When ever I went to Northumberland to visit my cousins as a child, all their friends said I talked POSH. I didn't, I had a slight Cockney accent but it was London so to them it was posh.

For the last six years I’ve looked after a man (we’ll call him Fred) who has a learning disability and whose dysfunctional childhood was actually somewhat less awful than my own. Many, many times I’ve mentioned to him that I was brought up in council housing and that we were a very poor family, but he has steadfastly refused to believe it. Then when he was visiting me recently I introduced him to my younger brother and they got on like a house on fire (brother used to work with learning disabled adults), chatting and laughing together. Fred asked my brother what it was like living with me when we were children and was absolutely astonished when my brother explained we were an extremely poor family and used to swap clothes (first up was best dressed) and scavenge food when we were little.

“But, but, how come you’re both so posh then?” He wanted to know. And the answer of course is that ‘posh’ is a subjective term.

Well, that’s my two penn’orth anyway. 😂