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What is posh?

(165 Posts)
pensionpat Fri 13-Jan-17 22:52:36

I've just noticed a new member with "posh" in her name. Welcome. But it started me thinking. What was your understanding of the word posh when you were a child. And what is it now?

For me, as a child it was someone who had clothes for summer/winter. A friend asked "have you gone into your winter clothes yet". I was 10 and she was younger. I didn't know what she meant. Nowadays i think it's posh if you have your dinner as your last meal.

Marmark1 Sat 14-Jan-17 09:22:48

Never met any when we were small,they were way,way, above us peasants.Never really met any nowadays.Met a few who think they are mind.

Humbertbear Sat 14-Jan-17 09:27:05

I worked in a university and a new member of staff who admitted to doing all her shopping in Waitrose was deemed 'posh' by our secretary

strawberrinan Sat 14-Jan-17 09:36:21

Not having your sauce bottles, teapot and bottle of milk on the table at teatime (Corrie-style)...and I didn't like it!

DaphneBroon Sat 14-Jan-17 09:37:37

Is it posh to have posh friends?

kittylester Sat 14-Jan-17 09:37:52

I volunteer with someone who insisted on calling me 'Fleur' and explained that she knew I had a posh name but 'Fleur' was the only one she could remember! confusedgrin

merlotgran Sat 14-Jan-17 09:42:36

My mother had a posh telephone voice. She sounded like Maggie Thatcher!

HannahLoisLuke Sat 14-Jan-17 09:44:07

To me, posh (horrible word) simply means someone with aristocratic heritage. Certainly nothing to do with money.

JackyB Sat 14-Jan-17 09:49:01

I think people used to find us posh because we called our parents "Mummy" and "Daddy". We somehow never got out of the habit. It may have been my father trying to hang on to the little bit of Irish in him, though.

muswellblue Sat 14-Jan-17 09:54:25

It's all relative - a bit like that sixties "I look up to him, but down at him" sketch. I find it very amusingly obvious at weddings that one side of the family is posher than the other. At one of our daughter's wedding we were the posh ones but at the other the groom's family were definitely a big cut above!!

Teetime Sat 14-Jan-17 10:01:53

Does anyone remember U and Non U as system for determining what was and wasn't acceptable I cant think of an example at the moment - it will come to me sometime!!

nannypiano Sat 14-Jan-17 10:02:32

When I was little, posh was an infrequent visit from a great aunt with her new man. No one had cars then in our locality, but she would pull up outside our house in a large black limo, dressed in a fur coat, jewellery and reeking of expensive perfume, seemingly looking down her nose at all of us. It made me never want to be posh, because no one liked her and we dreaded her visits.

Juggernaut Sat 14-Jan-17 10:08:01

Well, according to the link, I'm posh because I use Euthymol toothpaste....love the taste of it!

vampirequeen Sat 14-Jan-17 10:14:14

I have a friend who went to Eton. He's very well off but it's totally understated....he doesn't have to flash it because having money is just the way it is.

I know other people who think they're posh. My neighbour is one of these. Like me she lives in a two up two down with a bathroom extension but she insists her house is a cottage. She tries to pronounce her aitches but puts them in the wrong places sometimes. She thinks she's better than other people who rent all their lives. Not me because she thinks I had to leave a bought house when I escaped from ex. She'd die if she realised I came from one of the roughest estates in Hull grin

foxie Sat 14-Jan-17 10:16:03

Posh is not a word in common use anymore because as we've all got wealthier it has lost its real meaning of 'them and us'

HellsBells Sat 14-Jan-17 10:21:06

Winter duvets are posh - we just put our dressing gowns on top of the bed.

Kim19 Sat 14-Jan-17 10:22:15

Yep, 'posh' for me was fur coats, tweeds and plummy accent. Think nowadays I would refer to eateries as 'upmarket' usually because of their silly prices. Also think it's great that posh is used as derisory or fun. Progress indeed methinks.g

goose1964 Sat 14-Jan-17 10:36:30

To me posh is someone who says one as in one goes to Waitrose frequently

Shortlegs Sat 14-Jan-17 10:40:27

An expression I've never understood:. "A slap up meal in a posh restaurant".

dollyjo Sat 14-Jan-17 10:44:47

My Grandma was 'posh.' She said she lived in a semi-detached house. Actually, it was an end of terrace.

If ever I tried to be 'posh,' my Dad would bring me down to earth with a "Stop trying to live beyond your station."

I now live in a nice bungalow, live life comfortably, dress nicely and am actively involved in WI! Does that make me posh and from my humble beginnings - living beyond my station.

Blinko Sat 14-Jan-17 10:45:54

No mention of 'mif' as in Nancy Mitford's 'milk in first yardstick....

grabba Sat 14-Jan-17 10:49:52

Brought up on a scheme DaphneBroon and never wore anything other than pristine white socks to school as did my classmates. We had a phone and a TV but also a swing and a wigwam!
We were just us and even the people in the 'bought' houses weren't posh. I think posh was really just 'stuck up' or 'full of themselves' people

DaphneBroon Sat 14-Jan-17 10:59:26

Apologies if I offended by generalising grabba, my primary schooldays were a VERY long time ago.
The negative connotations were clear though and I can clearly remember being made to feel defensive.
Then of course, maybe you lived on a posh scheme?? grin

Leah50 Sat 14-Jan-17 11:01:01

Apparently we're posh because we live in a house with no number in a Lane in a village, so say some student friends. It's a scruffy farm workers cottage.

Rosina Sat 14-Jan-17 11:01:10

My aunt had a pearl necklace, her dresses were lined, and she was the first to have a fridge. That qualified her as super posh in a family of sisters who had none of these things!

boheminan Sat 14-Jan-17 11:09:27

As a child 'posh' schoolfriends lived in houses with carpets on the floor instead of lino. Now posh people live in houses with bare floorboards grin