In article ,
"Harold Walker" writes:
|
| 'Working class', now that's a blast from the past, one seldom hears the
| phrase nowadays, and, when one does, it's usually used by someone
| successful
| wishing to stress how far they've come from their 'roots'. How many people
| did you meet on your recent visit who, unprompted, referred to themselves
| as
| 'working class' or 'common folk', I wonder?
|
| But one or two but I periodically see it in the UK papers which I read on
| the internet daily plus I have seen it on this web site on more than one
| occasion.....I remember a sister-in-law who to her death about five years
| ago still considerd herself to be 'working class'....and...she was quite
| well eduacated and not without the "means" to have a very comfortable
| life.....but....came from a 'working class background'....whatever that
| is...

An increasing number are using it to refer to what is more properly
called the underclass - i.e. the sort of people who are shown in
various of the soaps, complete with no education, no steady jobs,
no ambition, a record of petty crime and delinquency and so on.

I find that calling the class of people who are not capable of doing
a useful job, and not prepared to do one either, the "working class"
rather sticks in my gullet.

Still, to a great extent they were created when That Woman decided
that the middle classes needed people to look down on, so their
situation isn't entirely the fault of their class :-(


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.