How do you define being Common !!!

Quietness I have, bagitha - nobody left in the flats now the ski season is over. Once I have turned off the radio/TV there is dead silence - it wouldn't suit everybody, but I like it.

bagitha!

I like quietness for everything, not only reading. I must be thoroughly low class!

I am able to read, surf and watch TV at the same time. Does that make me upper class?

How on earth can that be middle-class?
Surely anyone can do it if they're keen enough on reading!

Or you have taken out your hearing aid.

or good powers of concentration.

If you can read a book while a person in the same room is watching TV then that is middle class.

When I first went abroad at the age of 39 I had no qualms about asking my host or the waiter how to deal with food that I had never met before.
I was once eating alone at the Grill of the Hotel de Paris, Monaco, and I was trying to get a snail out of its shell with the little fork whilst holding the shell with the small gripping thing. Of course, everything was slippy with garlic butter and the shell skidded onto the floor. A passing waiter did not look at either me or the shell, just dipped his knees and whisked it away. That is what I call a good waiter
Another test of a top class restaurant is when you complain that a bottle of wine is corked. In a second-class establishment, the waiter will sniff the cork before agreeing with you. In the best places (which I no longer patronise now I have to pay for myself) the waiter will simply whisk the bottle away without argument but with an apology.

I've got a friend who is very well brought up, boarding school etc. I notice that when she eats she delicately removes the food from the fork without her lips touching the fork. She must be quite offended at the way I gobble my good down.

DD1 once came across a list of old rules of etiquette. No idea how authentic they were. The only one I remember is: Bite not thy bread, but break it — presumably into small enough pieces to pop delicately into your mouth. Sliced bread is, of course, a whole new potential battle ground as the bread-doubling shows. Some people must have very empty lives if folding bread upsets their sense of propriety.

I was told that it was 'common' to cut your roll - you are supposed to rip it apart with bare hands!
I have joined in this thread in a jocular manner, but I agree with those who feel it is unbecoming in any of us to look down on other people because of their size, shape, accent or upbringing.

Too much flesh on show, especially the white wobbly sort!

When I was a child I had a great aunt who thught herself a cut above the rest of us because she lived in a posh area.Her husband had inherited a house there from a wealthy relative.One day her daughter brought her latest boyfriend home to tea.My GA was describing him to my grandmother in these words;''He is a nice enough lad but a bit common, he doubles his bread''.
After hearing this my uncle would amuse us by folding his bread rather than cutting it and saying ''I am common I double my bread''
GA's daughter did not go on to marry this boy,I think her mother scared him off.

Oo-er![ shock]

Speak for yourself Anagram mine is all gluteus maximus

Or sit upon!

If we did not have adipose tissue there would be nothing to get hold of

And what's wrong with a little adipose tissue?

Being 4 stone overweight!

I don't find it funny, JessM - and anyway, I think they do it to show they're somehow tough and street-wise. They're copying those overpaid footballers who do it all the time on the pitch.

Is calling someone else 'common' just class prejudice ? Liel the Americans and heir trailer park trash? Good old looking down on the poor? And is it human nature to do so? But maybe not considered cool to speak of it.
A young IL of mine has a boyfriend who left school young and went into his fathers business. She has been to university and is from a more middle class family. I am not keen on him and not sure of the extent to which this is class based on my part. Or whether I just don't take to him.
It is my observation in life that some of those who are most anxious about being thought common are those who are most likely to accuse other people of being so. Goes back to the "respectable" working class trying to differentiate themselves from the "rough" working class.
Spitting teenagers always crack me up. Bless them, 14 year old boys are convinced it is a way of attracting girls!

How odd - the site won't accept even four asterisks - very posh! But you all know what my grandfather said!

I thought this thread was about what was in general considered to be common by silly people who took being common or not too seriously. But I guess some people are taking it as being the literal position of the poster. Come on, that isn't fair.

I often find a similar confusion when I give an example and it is taken to be what I actually believe. Also when you say why you think something happens and people take it that you think its right that it happened. (think riots)

Yes, slapper is a horrid sexist word.

It used to be said that Upper Class say lavatory, middle class say loo and working class say toilet!
My mother told the story of her sister, who rather fancied herself as a cut above others, bringing home a friend, who was equally snobby. The friend went out to the lavatory in the yard, and when she came back she remarked that it was very small. My grandfather replied that it was 'big enough to in'. I think the friend was very rude to comment and deserved his reply, but my aunt never forgave him.