Hi everyone. In this lesson, we're going to
look at what posh is, who are posh people, and also look at the language of posh people.
But let me start with "What is posh?", because maybe you haven't heard of it. This is, I
would say, something specific to English, because it has to do with the class system here. And the
class system is how the society is organized, from top to bottom. Not in some kind of official way,
like you get a piece of paper that says what class you're in. But it is the family you're born into
and it has an impact on the kind of school you go to, or the kind of job you do when you grow up.
So, although it's not an official formal thing, it's something that affects life in the UK for
English people, or - I said the UK there. Life in England for English people, and it's still in the
rest of the country, but I don't - I'm not sure how strong it is there, or how it is different.
I'm talking about the English prospective.
Okay, so starting with a diagram here of the
different classes in England. This is not to scale. This is an estimate of how big the
different classes are, the different social classes. So, if we start at the top with the
crown, that's where the queen would be. She's at the top, because she's the queen. Then, this
first chunk here, U, means "upper class". It's quite small compared to the rest. Here are all
the people, all the 60 million or however many people here, and here is the upper class.
Small amount of people is at the top.
Next, we have the upper middle class, and that's
a bit bigger. Next, we have the middle class, and now we're almost around half the population, a
bit less when we include the middle class. Then, we have the working class. That's the
biggest section. And the precariat. This is a new class. I'll explain about it after.
So, going back to the top. What kind of - how would we recognize these different groups of
people? How would we know who they are? Well, as a native-born English person, you just - you
just know and you can tell. It's the language people use, it's how they dress, it's
the job they do, things like that. But let's talk about jobs. What kinds of jobs
would these people do, as an example?
So, an upper class person. In the past, upper
class people didn't work. They didn't need to work, because they inherited their money. But
nowadays, they do work a lot of the time. So, they might do jobs like being the head of
a charity, or they might work in banking in the city, or they might be - many actors are from
upper class backgrounds. So, they tend to do jobs with really, really high status. Social power, and
even better if it makes a lot of money as well.
Next, we have the upper middle class. These
are people who do things like - a surgeon. A surgeon would be upper middle class. An
architect would be upper middle class. Professions that earn them a lot of money. And the
professions that are hard to get into as well.
Next, the middle class. Middle class - first
thing that comes to mind is teacher and managers in businesses. Middle class.
Working class would be the jobs such as trades - tradespeople jobs. Bricklayer,
electrician, roofer, a nurse, working class. Those that I mention there, those are skilled
working-class jobs. Working class could also - the lower part of the working class could also include
jobs - like working in retail. Yeah, working in retail, being a farmer, things - but not
owning the farm. If you own the farm, you're up here. But if you work on a farm, you're here.
Now, because the class system changes and evolves, it's called "working class", right? But many of
the people in the working class don't actually work. They get money from the government. They
don't go to work. They're on benefits. Sometimes, it's because people can't get a
job. They don't have any skills, really. No one wants to give them a job at all.
Or if they do find work, it's very temporary. It's just a few days and then the job's finished
and the job doesn't have any good benefits to working there. Benefits in the sense of earning
a pension and it's not stable. Things that - if your job's like all - it's not secure.
Or you have no job and no one will give you a job, you would be in what's called the precariat
class. Precariat means it's not stable here.
So yeah, bear that in mind. English people can
just tell, generally, where other people are in here. And a good question to answer now is also,
how much does it change in a person's life? You know, are you sort of born here and then you climb
all the way up to the top by becoming successful, becoming rich? Well, it doesn't really
happen a lot. There is flexibility. Some people go up to a profession much higher than
their parents were in, and the situation they were born in. But the thing about class is that
a great extent of it is how you were born.
So, over here in England, it's not only just about
how much money you've got, it's where you're born. So, we have very, very wealthy people, for
example, David Beckham and his wife, Victoria Beckham who is called "Posh Spice". They must be
super, super, super millionaires. But they are not considered upper class or upper middle class.
Or, depending on - I don't know where to put them, but they - basically, they've got all the money to
live up here or really, really high up here, but they - their personalities haven't really changed
so much to make them different kind of person.
So, it's - it could be really different in
your country, depending on whether the social hierarchy is so old, in a sense. We've been doing
this for a really long time over here in England because of the Queen and all that, so.
So, now we've got that out of the way. Now, let's go and talk about posh actors. How can you
find examples of posh people and their language? Well, you could look for movies with these actors
in, because these will give you good examples. If you like the way that the posh actors speak
and you can learn to speak more like them. So, there's Benedict Cumberbatch. He's in the
series "Sherlock", and that character he plays in "Sherlock" is posh. But in all his other
movies as well, he plays posh characters.
Tom Hiddleston. He was in the movie "War Horse".
He played somebody posh in that. There's a film that came out a few years ago called "The Riot
Club", "Riot Club" or "The Riot Club". And this was about students from Oxford University,
which is the top university or the second-top university. The - if you're posh, that's one of
the best universities to go to. So, the film is about how those students live and how they -
it's about what life is like for you if you're rich at one of those very, very top schools.
Then we have Tilda Swinton. She is quite an arty kind of actress. Doesn't necessarily always play
the super, super posh character in the film, but she is a genuine real posh person from
her family background. So, she's an example of the upper class person who is an actress.
And then there's Keira Knightley, and when Keira Knightley was younger and in many films, she was
always playing Jane Austen kinds of characters in her films. So, that's a good sign. If you see
those traditional English movies with the big dresses and old-fashioned speaking, that's a
good sign that the actor or actress is posh or from a posh background. Usually, those kind of
films get those kind of actors and actresses.
Okay, so now I'm going to talk about - we're
talking about posh people and the language they use. The hard thing about it when you try to
do a lesson on it is that you don't really meet many people who admit to being posh. They say, "Oh
yeah, I'm posh". You don't really admit it and I think it's a case today that many people who are
from posh backgrounds adapt their language down when they're around the "normal" people. So, they
don't speak really, really posh. So, it's hard for you to hear it and catch exactly how posh people
speak now. Plus, having distance really, really helps. So, it's hard to see it right now, how posh
people speak now, but you know twenty years later, when you look back. Maybe it's easier to say
and say, "Oh, posh people spoke like this".
So, what I'm going to talk about now is how
posh language was thought of and perceived back in the past, okay? So, this comes from 1955,
this discussion about how posh people speak, from the writing of Nancy Mitford. Nancy Mitford
was a journalist and a kind of socialite - upper class socialite from those times. And one of the
things she did was wrote about - one of the things she's famous for is writing about U and non-U
language. U language means upper class language. Non-U language means not upper class. And these
people are the social climbers. They could be the middle-class people who earned more money and
sort of climbing up. And these - or these could be the upper middle class people as well, who
are spending time with upper class people.
So, what this means is whoever was not born in the
upper class and had the right education and spent time in the right schools learning all the correct
upper class language. If you were not like that, then your language wouldn't - it would sound
like you don't belong there. Your language would give you away as not really belonging in
the upper class parties or wherever you go.
So, let's look at the signs in -
according to Nancy Mitford in 1955, the - how we can describe non-U language,
not upper class, the people climbing up, they spoke in a way that was refined, fashionable,
fancy. And they used French origin words. So, if we look at those descriptions, that sounds -
well yeah, speak like that, it all sounds good, doesn't it? Refined, you know, it's like elegant.
French origin words, sounds sophisticated. And they would use words such as "serviette",
"toilet", and they would say "pardon?" when they want to say "What did you say?" Now, this all
sounds good, but Nancy Mitford says this is - this looks bad. This makes you look like you really
don't belong here. You shouldn't speak like this, and anyone who is really posh does not
speak this way. It's not what you expect.
If you are upper class, if you're like Nancy
Mitford, your language is more direct. You say what it is. You've got nothing to prove. You know
that you're upper class. You know that you come from a good family. You know that your family has
connections. You know you have all the money you need. So, you're not trying to be refined or
elegant like these people, or fashionable. You don't care. You have everything - you have all the
status you need. You don't need to try hard with your language. And what's interesting about the
upper class for this time in 1955 was that they, in Nancy Mitford's opinion, is that they used many
of the same words as the working class people. So, the upper class people, back at that time, were
using a lot of the same words as the working class people, because these were the traditional
words of the things they were saying. Whereas these ones were changing their language to sound
better in their opinion. Oh, this is the right way to speak. But they were trying a little bit
too hard. So, Nancy Mitford said this is how we know the difference between someone who is really
upper class and someone who is just trying.
Now, we've got some example words coming up.
Let's look at some examples of upper class words compared to non upper class words. The first
words are all to do with things in the home. So, the upper class word is "house" and in Nancy
Mitford's opinion, the non upper class word is "home". They're synonyms, we use them in the
same way, but one word shows that you belong here with the Queen, and the other word shows
that you, you know, climbing up higher.
Next, we have "drawing room" and "sitting room".
These are the room in your house where you entertain people when they come to visit. The
non upper class people would say "lounge". And if we remember that the non upper class people
like words that have the French origin or sound more refined, because "lounge" comes from French.
This is why it's attractive for them to use.
Next, we have "lavatory" and lavatory
is generally shortened to "loo". This is still - saying "Where's the loo?" is still a -
even though it was 1955, it's still one of the things to show how posh is someone, because there
are many, many people who will - can only say the word "loo" or "lavatory", and they can't say
that word "toilet". They have to avoid saying that word. It's too - it's too low! So yeah,
this one is still the case. "Toilet" comes from French as well; toilette comes from French.
Sofa, it's where you sit in your lounge and watch the television. Ah, ah, ah. If you're upper
class, you probably never watch television, but they do have sofas. Whereas the non upper
class people would sit on their settees or couches, but "settee" is even lower than
"couch", I would say, in my sense of it.
Next, in 1955, the upper class people said
"looking glass". I'm going to look at the looking glass at my reflection. But I don't think they say
it now. If you're upper class, please let me know whether you say "looking glass" because I don't
know, I need your feedback on this one. These days, do you still say "looking glass"? Whereas
the non upper class people said "mirror".
And when they go to restaurants or when they're
eating, the upper class people would use their napkin, you know, very, very gently. And the non
upper class people would probably go like that or something, you know. Or maybe just use their hand.
Anyway, the word they would use is "serviette".
So, these words are group together now. We're
moving on from the home. The upper class word is to say you feel "sick". I'm feeling terribly sick.
But if you're not upper class, you say "ill". I'm ill. Next, the upper class people, because they're
more direct and they say - they say what they see or they tell it how it is, at least in those
times. They would say a person is "rich", who has got lots of money, who is absolutely stinking
rich. Whereas the non upper class people would say "wealthy", wealthy. It's not so - wealthy is more
of a sophisticated kind of word. Even though it means about money, in a way, it's not so much
about money. "Rich" makes us imagine piles of gold coins in a way that "wealthy" doesn't.
Next, upper class people talk about false teeth. Obviously, back in 1955, there were a lot
more people who had false teeth because they, especially in England, you know what our dentists
are like here. So, they lost a lot of their teeth and they didn't have them unless they wore their
false teeth. Whereas the non upper class people, they said "dentures". Believe that probably comes
from French. Let me know in the comments.
Upper class people said "spectacles",
not "glasses". And they would talk about riding their bike or bicycle, whereas the
non upper class people would say "cycle". And when it came to eating, the upper class
people would say "pudding", whereas the non upper class people said "dessert".
So, we are many years on from 1955 now. Definitely some of the examples in this
lesson don't apply anymore. For example, "looking glass". But I think it's true that,
in our times, there will still - there still is vocabulary that upper class people use that's
specific to them that, perhaps people who don't come from their social group, or who didn't go to
the schools with them, people just don't know this language that they use. They wouldn't know what's
the right word to say, because they just haven't been around all the other people that say those
words. If you didn't go to the expensive school, you just wouldn't learn it. And like I
said, at the beginning of the lesson, upper class people these days often change their
language down to talk to the normal people.
So, you - it's hard to know what - it would be
very interesting to know, but hard to find out. What are the words, such as this today? It would
be really interesting to know, but personally, I don't know. So, there's another - if you've
got any examples, you can leave a comment of words that you know are posh that people
use today in the upper class. So, thank you for watching and what you can do now is a quiz
on this lesson. See you again soon. Bye!
