How do you define someone as common?

I`m common, as I don`t know how to dress up, or speak with a posh accent, and don`t know how to mix and converse with anyone who acts as though they are above me.
To my grandma, it was women who painted their toenails, smoked, especially in the street, lived "over the brush", and went into pubs!

Brilliant,my late mother thought women who went bare legged instead of wearing tights/stockings were common,Lady Diana was includedin that one and as for those who wore curlers outside of their home that was almost a crime ,women drinking at all in pubs was dreadful ,but then they'd all signed the pledge for generations .Swearing by anyone was another and chewing gum .I went to convent school too and if we were seen in the street without our hats we got it in the neck from one particular nun who also used to tell us not to buy cheap "common" sweets in the town at lunchtime

Being seen without our school hats was virtually a mortal sin and a severe dressing down by Rev Mother followed. Also, of course, no eating in the street - very common! My mother used to think those lovely Christmas decorations that unfolded and stretched into the centre of the room were common - a bit like a pub. It was ok to have them stretched along a wall. She had a thing about things being common. I’m so glad I don’t have these hang-ups.

My mother said that red shoes, especially red shoes with ankle straps, "are what common women wear". To this day I've never owned a pair of red shoes, with or without ankle straps. Why did mothers fill our heads with such nonsense.

How to cause offence in one post

I find it much easier to say what is common than posh!

Someone is common if...

They eat or smoke when they're walking around
Have lots of tattoos on show (sorry! )
Eat with their mouth open
Talk when they're eating with their mouth open
They let their roots grow out too much
Use the f word in every sentence
Sniff instead of using a tissue or a hanky
If they have scouse brows

...that'll do for now.

Judgemental moi?

I don't think I have ever defined someone as common. However, the British [English] class system has always fascinated me with its absurdly different layers. I think that common is an expression used by what used to be called the lower middle class and middle middle class to distinguish themselves from those they considered a lower class and assert their superiority and refinement. Those who were/are secure in their "class", even now, don't have to bother as they are content where they are and assume everyone else recognises it. It truly is the most fascinating subject and while class distinctions may have changed a bit with popular television and other celebrities and some other developments, usually financial, the system still exists.

Common had nothing to do with class when I was young, it was behaviour, women who swore, got drunk, sat at a bar in a pub, talked too loudly, smoked on the street, had peroxide hair.

Another convent girl here and it was a mortal sin to be in the street without a hat I remember just twice being in the heads office and first time it was for not wearing my hat in public and the second time for being seen in the street with a boy with his arm around me ( I was 17)
Everything my Nan taught me was common is now normal ? A woman smoking in the street or a woman whistling were her two biggest bugbears

Having tomato ketchup with a Sunday roast rather than horseradish sauce. (I remember being aghast when hearing a friend’s OH did that. Now having done the quiz on the posh thread and finding myself common as muck I am really confused).

The word ‘common’ was never used in my circles when I was growing up, but I have come to know what it means now, and have a mental list of things I think of as common. This would include tattoos, very big televisions, too much make-up, loud speech or laughter, certain hairstyles, certain clothes, certain words.

Our headmistress at school told us not to wear cheap jewellery (obviously when not in school uniform) - we should stick to ‘family heirlooms’. There was a lot of plastic jewellery, beads etc, around in the 1950s, and I think that’s what she was referring to.

One of the most genuinely 'upper class' people I know has tomato ketchup with a roast and would be shocked that anyone might consider it odd.

It's just as absent says - he is so secure in his 'place'.

Yes, kittylester. The real upper class don’t have hang-ups, and do as they like.

The there is the sensitive subject of names. Some first names are common, and put those who bear them in their social place for ever. I won’t say what they are, because we don’t know what gransnetters are called.

I too was a convent girl, who was caught not wearing a hat. Members of the public used to phone the school to report us and we would get a rollicking from the nuns, as "ladies should always wear a hat outside." Also, we used to roll up our skirts and the nuns would pull them back down as we passed, saying "It is so common to show your legs". !
We very very poor when I was young, but I had a school friend, whose parents were very well off. I was invited to lunch in their large house and was so out of my depth. I have always remembered the look on the mother's face, when she put a plate of watercress soup in front of me and I said I didn't know what it was. There were other comments made. In hindsight, I realised that she thought I was too common and not a suitable friend for her daughter.
The irony was, that her husband told me that when they were first married, they were so poor, that they lived in a "single end" in Glasgow, with only a bed and a table and two chairs.
A "a single end" was one room with a sink, a bed recess and an outside toilet on the stairs in a tenement".
Not using a knife and fork properly and eating and talking with your mouth full, are the ones that get me.
I think that if I do the posh quiz, I will find that I am still common. I remember Soop joking at the Edinburgh bash that she expected to meet a very posh lady in Marydoll, and I had shattered her illusions!
As my friend always says: " You can take the girl out of Glasgow, but you can never take Glasgow out of the girl!"

My g aunt Ginny ,who is responsible for me still using handkerchiefs not tissues , said princess Margaret was common ?

My grandmother used to say that God must love common people very much because he made so many of them.

Think a lot of this is an age thing. There was more emphasis in our younger days on how we appeared to others. Eating,smoking,kissing in the street was considered very bad form. I remember it being compulsory to wear our large school hats when outside, the day we left school a group of us threw our hats in the harbour. I still dislike visible tattoos and men in string vests ( are they still around)

I don't think the current generations would think of many of these things as 'common'. I feel fairly sure that word is not in their vocabulary! (Exclamation marks are common of course). My mother was still getting over being able to go out without a hat and gloves in the late 1960s! That's not 'common' now we just like to be more practical and not caged.

Why did mothers fill our heads with such nonsense - because they felt insecure. I wonder if anyone even thinks about "what's common" now. I would be more likely to think something unhelpful than common. Otherwise you do your own thing and enjoy it as long as you don't make life difficult for others.

My mother would relegate another woman to 'common-ness' by deciding whether her 'hung-oot' washing was white enough. If I heard her say, 'She hings oot a braw washing' it meant that that particular lady was perhaps slightly more common than we were, but could be forgiven for it because of how clean her washing was.

My list is so long I would get cramp typing it ?
However , we used to occasionally visit a NWales seaside town and the legion of young women, very overweight, wearing stretched leggings ,strappy tops with bras showing and pushing a buggy with a baby or child eating fast food, while the mother was on the latest model mobile phone has to come near the top.
Judgemental or not? They would often be waiting for a taxi to pick them up. I am really letting my bad side out now.

A girl at school once told me her teacher parents didn't like her playing with me - I was common, apparently, because I lived in a pub.

Seems common and class were mixed up.

My mam taught me that common is:
Smoking/eating in the street.
Going into pubs without a husband/boyfriend to escort you.
Sitting in the pub bar rather than the lounge.
Drinking pints.
Swearing (particularly in the street).
Talking/laughing/singing too loud (esp in the public).
Having dirty windows/front door step.
Having a dirty house.
Having dirty children.
Wearing animal print coats.
Wearing red lipstick.
Standing on street corners.
Wearing low cut tops
Wearing very short skirts.
Wearing clothes that are too tight.
Wearing white high heels.

Also everything that WilmaKnickersFit said accept I have no idea what 'scouse brows' are?

What are 'scouse brows'?