How do you define someone as being posh?

Did the test. I’m ‘common as muck’. That’s good to know!

Sorry for all the typos - clumsy fingers on my phone!
I meant to add I came out as middle class in the quiz though I knew some of the correct answers but tried to be honest . But some of the multichoice answers had nothing I would say.
By the way I do put sauce bottles on the table on the rare occasions we use sauce. But always put milk in a milk jug. And (for guests at any rate) serve veg in dishes and use a gravy boat. I hate food being plated up and prefer to serve myself.
I put the marmalade jar on the table but add a spoon so people dont dig their knives in !

I agree 'posh' has no place in 21st century Britain. I've heard using proper grammar described as 'posh'. God help us. If it exists at all, it's a reflection of the speaker's insecurities.

Apologies if anyone's posted this already. I haven't read through the whole thread!

How To Get On In Society by John Betjeman:
Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.

Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.

It's ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule's comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know that I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones;
Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

Yes I agree about the little fin ger and china cups - it happens automatically.
I think the words I grew up with - lounge, toilet, perfume, pardon, mirror, serviette, etc are middle class as they are a bit Hyacith Bucket - trying to be posh but ending up twee.
When I read Nancy Mitfords book about U and non U I was amazed to fi nd the 'correct' words (uf you are U (upper class) are drawing room, lavatory, scent, what, look8ng glass and napkin. S cent and lavatory in particular sounded crude anx I still cant bring myself to say 'what' if I can't hear properly - I tend to say 'sorry?'
I belueve that Carole Middleton revealed herself as middle class to the Royal family by saying 'pardon'.
I always had lunch as elevenses and dinner at midday but even lunch at midday is wrong apparently. It's luncheon. . Mantelpiece is also.n9n U.
Posh is not the same as U and non U doesn't necessarily mean common.
Money has nothing to do with it. You can be U and poor and rich but common.
The only upper class person I knew well (widow of a Lord who lived in the dower house) had a very shabby and untidy home (with inherited good old furniture.) When invited for dinner she borrowed staff from her son's house (the big house) to serve. I couldnt stop myself thanking them when they served me but she didnt - one doesnt acknowledge staff! ( though I know she thanked them privately.) She spoke to theperson pn her right for one course and turned to her left the next and so on. She had immaculate manners and never made us feel out of place.

Only hotels and airports have lounges.

Granny23......Did you mean to say that your very posh sister shops at Waitrose. Really posh people do not shop at Sainsbury’s as that’s where I shop!. I am a bit posh and I do know how to eat my asparagus and how to break my bread roll, and I use napkins (proper ones sometimes) and not serviettes. But does anyone really care anymore?.
I hate the word posh as many years ago when I was driving my young son back to school he refused to allow me up to his dormitory as he said his friends said I was posh and he was a bit confused.

Say front room, have sauce bottles on the table and desert is afters. Despite that have dined at several top class London hotels without disgracing myself.

Nice to see you posting again Joan, was just thinking about you the other day.

Petra: [QUOTE]
I can't believe that anyone actually uses the word posh anymore.
Most of the things mentioned are just common sense or personal taste.
Your little finger automatically points up when drinking from a small China cup.
I always use a fork for cake. I hate sticky fingers.
If you do eat rolls with your dinner, where else are you going to put the roll, on the table?
Who puts bottles of sauce on the table?[QUOTE]

I agree with everything you say except the sauce. I do put the sauce on the table the few times it's required, but there is only myself and my husband. We only ever cook for my son and DIL, and that's not very often as they live too far away, and from memory sauce hasn't been needed - however if it was, as it's only close family, the bottle would go on the table!

You're right the small pinky does seem to automatically stick out when trying to hold tiny handles on china cups - I noticed that the other day!

I was condemned as being 'posh' when I first met my then fiance's family. I'd been living in Austria doing a translation job for months, and had spoken nothing but German. It usually takes a week or two to get my Yorkshire accent back, and it hadn't come back when I met my future in-laws in Batley. Not sure if I was ever forgiven!! I wonder if it is true that the word 'posh' means 'port out, starboard home' for people coming and going to India. One thing is for certain, there was nowt 'posh' about the cross channel ferry that I came home on.

I must be as vulgar as they come then Bagatelle because I think people who are well off as posh.

Oops - I'll just whip the milk bottle and marmalade jar off the kitchen table first.

Actually, the word is 'smart'. Use of the word 'posh' is vulgar.

Now to find my Barbour and Hunters and take the Cavalier King Charles for a walk.

We say living room
But g-daughter was making something and said Where’s the butter. Answer In the butter dish Oh how middle class she laughed......

In my day everyone was poor the only people that had cars were the Headmaster, doctor and local businessman, but my parents had standards and I was taught to break bread rolls with my hands when eating soup.

Crooking your little finger while drinking tea is NOT posh! It's what non-posh people think is posh.

One of the girls that I worked with had an aunty who was so posh she wore lipstick when washing the floor!!! That’s me then!

I tend to use the word posh to describe things rather than people. (e.g. a posh meal, a posh restaurant)
If using it for a person I would be mocking them.

Common people keep the sauce bottles in the cupboard, middle class people keep them in the fridge & the upper classes have no idea where theirs are kept - they’d have to check with the butler!

If the asparagus is served as a course by itself I use my fingers. If it's just one vegetable on a plate of meat and veg. then I use knife and fork.

DM retired to a little Norfolk seaside town and caused a mild sensation in the post office when she asked for a ball of string to tie her asparagus for cooking.

Mind you, I have had to give up keeping the coal in the bath because with the advancing years it has become too much of an effort to lug it up and down the stairs

I worked in engineering and music all of my life until I retired at age 70. I've done well and have a nice house with a good company pension but I don't kid myself and don't need a quiz to tell me I'm working class through and through.

Interesting word "posh". Seems we tend to use it in an ironic way and it doesn't mean the same as tasteful,up market or U. There is an element of the thing being described as OTT or ostentatious.
It was a word my older sister used to use , haven't heard it recently.

I have an estuary accent but my friend from the East End thinks I sound posh!!

We went to dinner once to a couple who thought they were posh. The lady of the house showed me round, pointing out artwork etc., and saying what everything cost. Now, that's not posh.

When I was a child my friend's mum tried to be posh. Eating dinner there one evening my friend wiped her hands on her dress. Her mum said "Isobel, don't do that. What do you think the tablecloth is for?" That's not posh either!