How do you define someone as being posh?

Life is too short to decant ketchup. Bottle on the table.

I wonder what all these words mean to everyone. We have 'Posh' is that upper-class or just monied. The "U" quiz is an interesting one. "U" stands for upper-class and non-U for catching out the aspiring middle classes. I can't actually remember but I think it was the early 50s when Nancy Mitford caught this phrase and wrote about it. Do we really have so many from the upper classes on this forum?

I'm not sure that people are as defined by class any more and would certainly like to think they are not. Education and money seem to get you further these days although who your father was and where you come from can still give you advantages.

The quiz says I'm a 'u'
My Black Country friends think I'm 'posh' because I was born in Bath, and pronounce it as Barth

I have a friend who went to Eton, sounds like a 'Tally ho' WWII RAF pilot and lives comfortably in a Georgian crescent town house. He never talks about money or what he has. To him it's just the way life is. He's posh but lovely.

We don't even eat tea at our table, our lounge is so small and we don't use serviettes. We eat watching tv. And where do we live ?East London . My DH talks about mowing the lawns which in fact are two small squares of grass.

I think a lot of aspiring middle-class people changed their vocabulary when they read the Nancy Mitford ideas in the press. My parents did to some extent.

Have you ever felt somewhat out of your depth socially? I once had a very upper-class boyfriend. (Needless to say it didn’t last.) We were on holiday in Switzerland and he took me to lunch with a friend of his family, a very rich old lady who had been a well-known writer. Her house (I think it was in Vevey) had a ballroom. Lunch was just the three of us, and was pleasantly informal apart from the fact that it was served by a butler and there were finger bowls on the table. I didn’t use my finger bowl because, I reasoned, my fingers were perfectly clean and not sticky, but I noticed my boyfriend did use it. I learnt later that you are supposed to use it whether you need it or not. I still cringe a bit when I think of my social blunder!

I am resolutely common but I have picked up some 'posh' ways I suppose depending on your perspective e.g We never eat off a tray watching TV but we do sit at the table watching TV when we have dinner with serviettes (recyclable) not napkins - too much washing and ironing. Its a practical thing DH would throw his dinner all down his front in an armchair and it makes digestion difficult.
My BIL insists on calling me a snob because I shop at Sainsbury!

Did the quiz which said that I'm from no specific class and probably not from England!!!!!

Did the quiz , I am - an out and out U, how daft

Did the quiz. I'm definitely posh. Good grief, how did that happen? I wouldn't say I'm posh. I'd say I tend to be polite so answered the questions accordingly. I blame my mam for this. She was insistent that I shouldn't act common.

I live in council bungalow, am daughter of coal miner, brought up in a .Manse, do not have a table because no room for one , wouldn't never use a serviette though , but do use paper napkins because I don't do ironing , never eat ketchup , am a MIF, so the quiz is daft

I did the quiz and came out as middle class which I am most certainly not.

Working class girl and proud.

Having said that I have been called “posh” just because we always eat at the table

I think being posh is when you don't have to put vinegar in the sauce bottle any more.

Annieback People who live in council houses are as good as anyone.

"The meaning of a word is its use" (Wittegenstein)

When we were children, anyone who had a bathroom was posh. It was a tin bath for us which was kept on a hook in the yard. We had a bath once a week. There were 6 of us, cleanest in first then the rest followed one after the other and the water topped up. The bath was placed in front of the fire to stop us freezing and the bath water was boiled in kettles on the stove. A very long process!

I don’t buy or eat bottled sauces?

My young. Niece thought we were very posh because we have a hatch from the kitchen into the dinning/sitting room and I also put bottles on the table, can’t be bothered with all this faff and more junk. My sister is the biggest snob I know and thinks we are uncouth because we put the toilet roll on the holder the wrong way. Actually that’s been sorted as the holder came away from the wall and the toilet roll now sits on the pipe end on the radiator

Me too KatyK I was born in the 60’s and remember having a toilet st the bottom of the yard that we shared with 3 other flats. I remember the white washed walls and the spiders webs . Yuk . No wonder I’ve got “toilet issues”

KatyK
You were lucky. There wasn't room for a tin bath in our 'living room'
Ours was in some old outhouse joined to the scullery.

Posh is using a paper napkin and not just a piece of kitchen roll.

We do have some somewhere and I try to use them if we have guests.

gilly Yes we had an outside toilet too (I was born in the late 40s). Ours had whitewashed walls and spiders' webs too and ripped up newspapers nailed to the door for toilet paper. Oh petra now I feel posh as we had room for the tin bath!

My daughter's friend, both aged about eleven told her mum we were posh because all the veg were in serving dishes, my children didn't like veg but ate some or more if they served themselves, still do it now, old habits die hard, but am most definitely not posh

I was told serviettes are paper and napkins are linen. Napkins are posh.

We decided our future DiL was posh as her family never put sauce or mayo bottles on the table, it had to be decanted into little dishes with their own spoons and one never used ones own fork to dig out the onions from the designer pickle jar.