How do gransetters define being "posh"?

Of course nowadays the young posh change their accents to sound more like everyone else. Princes W and H being the obvious examples.

My mother always said I couldn't have a red coat because it was "villagey".

Ooh yes, and eating in the street is common! (According to my Granny)

Now we're talking - I don't have a lot of posh comments, but I certainly know what's common! My mum also ingrained in me that you don't eat in the street because it's common, and one of my annual delights is to have a drive out to Blackpool or Fleetwood to buy fish and chips that can be eaten on the prom. Nothing tastes nicer!

I also remember learning all that stuff about introducing the junior person to the senior one - or was it the other war round? I managed to get this very wrong in French once, because you should use presenter rather than introduire which means to physically intoduce something into something else...

I didnt know that sending your sheets to the laundry was posh. I have recently started doing it as since my husband died things seem to get on top of me. I cannot afford a cleaner but I can afford the laundry. It is making me feel a whole heap better.
Do people today even think about things like posh or not - I dont think so. I abhor snobbery but I suspect I might have been guilty of being a little snob in the past and I am truly sorry. Life is indeed too short.

Well, opinions on some things have certainly changed. It was also considered common for women to have tattoos in my younger days!

flower friend I was only being lighthearted. I don'treally pay any attention to what is posh and what is not.

I don't think I will ever be able to forget what my mother thought was common. Never wear sparkling jewellery before evening. I never do- I can't.
A lot of it is ingrained in me but now all ignored by the younger generations. My mother married up from working class to middle class and she struggled all the time trying to do what was 'right'
She never would have thought herself Posh though. That was another league altogether.

Yes, I agree, Charlotta. My grandmother (who brought me up) would never have considered herself, or aspired to be, "posh" but she did have very set views on what was "common", and I'm afraid they are ingrained in me, too! I really didn't want my daughter to get a tattoo, but when she came home with one I surprised myself by how calm and accepting - even admiring - I was of it!

My mother thought that not only was it common to eat fish and chips in the street, it was also common to buy them. On the odd occasion that we had them my father was sent out with a shopping bag which he had to smuggle in to the house without the neighbours seeing! And of course they were put on a plate and eaten with a knife and fork!

Isn't it interesting that our generation can refer to people as "common" without batting an eyelid. My mother used to say that some of my friends were "common", so I loved and defended those friends to the death.

But can you imagine our children or grandchildren referring to their friends as "common"? They use other adjectives I suppose.

Class will always rear its ugly head - but not just here in the UK. On the whole we're a tolerant lot. But in Thailand (this is just an example) there is an extraordinarily complicated class system and woe betide anyone who steps over the boundary.

Anagram you behaved beautifully when confronted with that tattoo. But I am having a dreadful time trying to accept DD's boyfriend's goatee (it really is in your face!). DH feels sorry for me because, as he tells all and sundry, Jack is the one who has to kiss the boyfriend.

What's the modern term for common? Chavish?

Talking of fish and chips. Is it posh to use fish knives and forks or is it more posh not to care?

I remember our headmistress, Miss Hunt, lecturing us on the inappropriate ness of eating (e.g. ice-cream) in the street in school uniform! We were all rather surprised I think.
Where i come from Welsh accents were considered common. Somehow my GM scrimped and sent my mother to elocution lessons for years (she got to the highest level, i have her medals upstairs). Her cousin is still alive and you can hear her slightly elocutionised Welsh accent if you listen for it. Think Hopkins, Burton. Sian Thomas etc. Sounded much more anglicised than say, Huw the News.
Incidentally my DH keeps cracking up at the presenter on - i think it is channel 5 (the one with american crime on) - a VERY strong Port Talbot accent. I keep saying it is Rob Bryden hamming it up and he keeps disagreeing. But Rob, different generation, didn't get trained at an early age to talk posh like those other famous p'talbot boys.
I still find a certain valleys accent makes me thing people are a bit slow. I had a computer science lecturer once who had it. I remember him talking endlessly about the AD-Der (hardware, long obsolete) and lecture so boring we envisaged a reptile.

My MiL had done elocution although her 'normal' accent was pure Halifax. We were always amused by her 'telephone' voice.

Ah my GM had one of those. But M just had a "beautiful speaking voice". She could have had a job with the BBC if she had spoke Welsh too.

Annobel I find fish knives neither use nor ornament. Fingers for eating them outside are far better!

What are you supposed to do with them? Were they for de-skinning or something? Seriously, I would be interested to know.

Fingers are the only way to eat fish and chips in the paper, cant be doing with those plastic spikes.
When I was at school I thought that anyone who had fish knives were extra posh.

I've never possessed fish eating tools! I once went to Henley Regatta and had lunch in a rather smart marquee. Half way through the salmon course, I realised I wasn't using the fish knives and forks. As it would have drawn attention to my faux pas, I carried on with the ordinary cutlery.

Anagram they're flat and wide with a point that enables you to gentilely remove skin and separate choice pieces from the bones without making a mess (that's the theory!)

But....what are fish knives for?

Oh, thank you Carol - my last post crossed with yours! Yes, I know what they look like (we had them when I was a child, but never used them). Sounds as though an ordinary knife would do the job just as well.

To eat fish with Anagram! I have a lovely bone handled set that was a wedding gift to my parents. However I don't remember it ever being used (my mother died when I was 5 so that could be the reason). I chose bone handled cutlery when I married so it would all match, but still never used the fish set! I still treasure it tho'