| Monday, March 07, 2005 |
 | There's a soft point of sharp pain at the roof of my mouth, thanks to an inadvisable bite into a hot spring roll at a birthday party. I am an idiot. The party was, incidentally, lovely - the hostess in particular looked fantastic, as did the bullethole-ridden zombie.
The conversation at the party covered many fascinating areas, in particular feminist science fiction and fashion (both of which I must talk about more), and also featured the term "chav", which I read far more than I hear and which got me thinking. The most convincing etymology I have seen applied to "chav" is from "chavo" (Romany), probably through "charver" (North-East). It doesn't exactly describe a gypsy, much as "pikey" does not describe precisely a traveller, but it always seems to me to have some sympathies with negative portrayals of the Roma - the cheap clothes, the illiterate children, the ostentatious jewellery, the constant, near-subliminal criminality. It's a very elastic term, though - ultimately, it seems possible to expand it to include almost anyone who is recognisably chavvy, and around you go. And, because it has undergone this semantic transformation to describe a class, a lifestyle, an attitude, a level of actual or apparent poverty (the Burberry cap is significant here - a cap is far cheaper than a suit, and also far easier to fake), an unpleasantness it can be applied by anyone to anyone. Anyone, perhaps everyone, can be bullied by a chav, or mugged by a chav, or raised by chavs.
Thought experiment. What if it came from chaver (Hebrew, friend, companion). Would that change anything?
Elsewhere, Lifehacker comes up with this guide to PC maintenance. Most of these things I do already. Buying a Mac never seemed so wise before.
Is this the filthiest worksafe site ever?
Further afield, albino squirrel and bouncing hedgehog.
3 Comments:
Hi Dan,
Hope all is well. Long time no see. Let's get together next week. How about Tuesday night 15/03/05?
Surly you know it's Council Housed And Violent (CHAV).
All the breast,
Damian.
Etymologies from acronyms are usually convenient, convincing and wrong. The carious acronymic representations of chav are, I think, retrofits to explain the term rather than origins.
Will check diary and email.
Carious? Lord. Time for bed, I think.
| |
