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How do you define someone as being posh?

(290 Posts)
NanKate Fri 19-Jan-18 22:18:59

This was a question posed on a local radio programme last night and was fun. Here are a couple of the suggestions, cocking your little finger whilst drinking, using a china teacup.

What are your suggestions ?

Craftycat Sun 21-Jan-18 11:34:13

Front room or sitting room.
I was taught to break a small piece off a roll & butter that bit & eat each small bit rather than cut the roll & spread butter on it as that was 'vulgar'. My Mum liked the word vulgar or common! Grandma told me I would never go to tea with the Queen if I didn't mind my table manners.
She must have been right as I never have been invited.
Just goes to show how times have changed although do still eat a roll like that! It does save getting butter on your mouth.

Oopsadaisy52 Sun 21-Jan-18 11:36:04

Posh people don’t buy furniture, it’s all inherited, wood worm and all!

Grandma70s Sun 21-Jan-18 11:38:14

Since when is saying toilet not common? Of course it is.

I suppose drawing room is the poshest term for what I call the sitting room.

Lilyflower Sun 21-Jan-18 11:38:49

I think a good social identifier for the modern age is that some people put their wheelie bins out for the refuse collection and then take them in off the street again so they cannot be seen and others leave them in full view all week round.

I have no authority for saying that polite and considerate bin etiquette is 'posh' but leaving the bins out all the time, even (and, perhaps, especially) if in a front garden, is certainly naff.

mymadeupname Sun 21-Jan-18 11:44:57

Oopsadaisy I love your list too! I lived in rural Oxfordshire for years so maybe we know the same people?!

We recently downsized to a less posh (ie more common...) area and am endlessly entertained by the little differences I observe on a daily basis.

I hadn't got into cars but yes, the older and more beat up and filthy the posher the people. Where I am now people have flash cars on smart block-paved parking spaces outside their houses. Very smart but not posh. I've noticed they have a lounge too. I might soon have a lounge myself - these things are quite catching.

One thing for sure is I will always have pudding. grin

varian Sun 21-Jan-18 12:20:36

I think a drawing room is a very large room in a big house with several other reception rooms, but I have heard folk who either were posh or want to be posh refer to their one and only living room as "the drawing room".

Sheilagh Sun 21-Jan-18 12:33:07

I'm posh according to the quiz, news to me

mymadeupname Sun 21-Jan-18 12:37:05

To refer to your one and only sitting room as a 'drawing room' is pretentious.

If your drawing room is one of several reception rooms (drawing room, morning room, day room, library, dining room, garden room etc) then it is perfectly appropriate.

'Toilet' is only considered common by the aspiring middle classes who are trying too hard. (See 'calling a spade a spade is not common' posted earlier.) Posh people don't flinch from common words, they embrace them and usually (as has been previously pointed out) declare them loudly and with relish.

Which brings me to relish, not pickle, unless onions which are pickled and stacked in jars in the pantry.

Agree posh people don't buy furniture. I would add carpets to that - they just have their rugs professionally restored at great expense.

mymadeupname Sun 21-Jan-18 12:52:41

I know this about rugs because I inherited one which was filthy and in shreds.

We nearly chucked it on the skip (which reminds me, skips on drives are common) but thought maybe I should just look into it first so I took it to a specialist for an opinion.

They identified the region, history, tribe etc and wanted to send it back to the actual village in the mountains somewhere exotic (can't remember the details) to be professionally restored. This would cost around £4,000 and the restored rug would be worth at least £6,000.

We didn't have £4000 to spend on restoring a rug too expensive to ever walk on so we took the other option. £250 cash in hand. grin

Foxyferret Sun 21-Jan-18 13:11:09

My daughter went to school once and said we were posh because we had grapes in the fridge and no one was even sick.

jools1903 Sun 21-Jan-18 13:13:13

People think I'm posh because I speak with no accent! I'm not, honest gringringrin

varian Sun 21-Jan-18 13:19:42

I bet you do, jooljs. Everyone has an accent.

annsixty Sun 21-Jan-18 13:19:45

I have just used the word lounge on another thread.
Oh the shame. Will I have to leave GN?

varian Sun 21-Jan-18 13:20:47

You could move to the common thread annsixty

annsixty Sun 21-Jan-18 13:23:13

I think I probably belong there more ?

WilmaKnickersfit Sun 21-Jan-18 13:25:34

I've always thought that getting out of the bath to have a pee was posh.

This post by Shortlegs wins Post of the Day! grin

mymadeupname Sun 21-Jan-18 13:31:30

annesixty I understand your concern but the situation is not without hope.

I suggest you change the context (can we edit posts in emergency situations like this when our public image is at risk?).

Try re-framing your obvious faux pas by passing it off as a typo. You clearly meant it as a verb 'to lounge' which is of course fine, as opposed to a noun, which is not. (Unless you are in an airport which do have areas to sit which are called 'lounges'.

granjan Sun 21-Jan-18 13:41:09

I felt quite posh when I bought a bag of Physalis in Waitrose on Friday.
I can remember being told they were called Chinese Lanterns when I was a child, The 'old' lady who lived next door, had them growing rampant in her garden. Pretty sure neither the old lady or my parents knew they were edible!
We lived in a back to back terraced house. So yes, I admit I felt a bit 'posh'. Goodness knows what my mother would think! ??

mymadeupname Sun 21-Jan-18 13:59:13

granjan that is exceedingly posh! I'd never heard of Physalis so googled it and there was the plant I remember folk growing and drying for indoor decoration, called Chinese lanterns.

I didn't know anything about them let alone you could eat them and (why am I even surprised) they are sold in, ahem, Waitrose. I am very impressed (though I don't shop in Waitrose myself, I prefer the farm shop and the local butchers wink.)

kittylester Sun 21-Jan-18 14:22:41

Don't eat the ones in your garden!!

I thought they were called syphilis!

annodomini Sun 21-Jan-18 14:24:17

If a person defines herself as 'posh', she almost certainly isn't.

MissAdventure Sun 21-Jan-18 14:24:19

grin

Hilmix Sun 21-Jan-18 14:25:50

In France we put our pieces of bread on the table unless in very posh restaurant. Some French hosts stick the baguette under their armpit and cut the pieces with a hunting knife ( true dat!) while others just rip the baguette with their hands into manageable pieces. Hyacinth Bucket would faint clean away....

Hilmix Sun 21-Jan-18 14:36:27

We live in a lovely mobile home in France so are definitely not regarded as posh. Some of my English acquaintances are amazed when they first meet us because we don't have a dog on a piece of string and my husband doesn't wear a sweat-stained vest. Some of these people regard themselves as upper middle class even if they live in one room of their beautiful stone built houses. One woman I met at a book club told us that her husband peed out of the window of their 3rd floor bedroom because the lavatory was on the ground floor of their dilapidated house and it was too far and too cold to go there. She was complaining that the stone facade had a stain from underneath the bedroom window. I regarded her as posh because common people would never admit to that much less discuss it .

Cabbie21 Sun 21-Jan-18 14:37:05

I got out the “posh” dishes the other day when we actually had something sweet to put in them, as opposed to the usual fruit or yogurt for pud/ pudding/ desert / afters........

DH infuriates me by insisting on a linen serviette /napkin then making a huge mess on it when he eats his meal (dinner / supper/ tea) on a tray in his lap in the front room/ sitting room / lounge /drawing room.
Then he goes to the loo / toilet /lavatory and leaves the seat up.