How do you define being a Snob!

Looking down on anyone!

Hyacinth Bouquet!

hmm. the most gracious are those who do not differentiate. they would not be snobs.
so, someone who treats people differently, or thinks of people differently because of their backgrounds.

That just about sums it up, Blue!

Anybody who despises another person for reasons of class, upbringing, education or money! I'm sure there are other categories!
In fact:- treat yor neighbour as yourself, unless they are antisocial!

Someone who chastises their cleaner for calling them by their first name - this has just happened to a friend of mine! Unbelievable!

What? You are joking! Gary (gardner) and Kate (cleaner) (married couple, ) have always called me by my first name! We also have take outs together and BBQs where Gary does the cooking and I provide all!

chastises their cleaner for calling them by their first name? i make my colleagues address me as 'mrs *******'. i don't like too much informality!

Does that mean that you can't expect others to use your surname and call you Mrs X? Not even a woman who cleans for you. You have right not to be called by your Christian name if you don't like it.

Respect cannot necessarily be measured by what people call you.

granbunny - you make your colleagues address you as 'mrs x'? You don't ask them then?
I agree that you should be able to choose how you are addressed, but come on, if they're colleagues, surely you could just express your preference?

No ! But I know that G and K do respect me!
They say ( I have no side to me?)
This appears to be local sign of approval.
My GP father taught me to treat all people as equal!
I have tried to always follow his example !

Charlotta then you should call your cleaner "Mrs X"!

You have cleaners ?

My mature students called me by my forename as I did them. There's a book about adult ed called 'Teaching on Equal Terms'. One can't do that if there's some social distinction. Amusingly, when I taught O level English to RAF students, mostly NCOs, they had to be dissuaded from calling me ma'am, as if I were an officer. Informality finally triumphed. When I was teaching ESOL, my Iranian students couldn't quite stomach calling me by my forename and compromised with 'Mrs A'. Teaching teenagers, of course, was a very different matter. If you don't maintain a certain distance, there's going to be a breakdown in discipline.

Yes! I'm too disabled to do it myself!

Quoting Charlotta - "not even a woman who cleans for you".

Lowest of the low is she?

anagram, i don't ask, i just let it be known that i prefer...they find it mildly shocking but they go along with it...

You said 'I make...'

I employed a cleaner as soon as I started teaching - we used forenames and she became a good friend.
I am not keen on being addressed by my forename by young people in call centres but if they ask 'May I call you X' I always say 'Yes', on the grounds that they have been polite enough to ask.
When I joined the Inland Revenue as a tax inspector, the rules were that all the people in lower grades had to call me Miss X, but when I went out to the pub with them it was forenames all round. However, I was not their line manager.

I prefer to be addressed as Mrs harri, as my mother used to say " familiarity breeds contempt "

well, its effective in that they do it. i appreciate that.
i first became conscious of, and particular about, this when the gas company wrote to me by my first name. i found that shocking. i don't think people should use my first name unless i know them.

Presumably you know your colleagues, though, granbunny?
Effective or not, it seems rather preremptory.
Each to their own, I suppose.

well, no, i don't know all my colleagues. i have over 200 colleagues in the workplace. working together does not mean they know me or i know them. i became deeply irritated by 22 year olds bouncing up to me and addressing me by a diminutive of my first name and expecting a warm response. i find that when they approach with 'mrs ****' i can smile and be welcoming. that works better for us all.