Charvaism is a culture, not a class

Jul 20 2008 by Ken Oxley, Sunday Sun

A LEFT-WING pressure group wants to ban the word “chav” because it believes it to be offensive. I totally agree . . . it IS offensive, but isn’t that the point?

Sometimes you want to offend people. And the dictionary is full of derogatory terms far worse than chav that will help you do just that.

Chav — or charva as we tend to say in the North — is shorthand for a cultural stereotype. We all know who they are . . . loud, dim-witted attention seekers with no morals or fashion sense, as personified by Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard.

It’s a tribute to the richness of our ever-evolving English language that one small word can say so much.

Touchy-feely members of the Fabian Society, however, take an entirely different view. The organisation’s editorial director, Tom Hampson, says using the word amounts to “middle-class hatred of the white working class”. But surely not all chavs are white and while most may well be working class, the vast majority of working class people are in no way chavs.

I’m sure Mr Hampton means well, but we can’t ban words just because they offend people.

Why is calling someone a chav any worse than labelling them a yob, layabout or scumbag?

And there are plenty of disparaging terms aimed at the other end of the socio-economic spectrum . . . snobs, Hooray Henrys, chinless wonders and so on.

If you’re a chav, the smart thing to do would be to reclaim the word . . . be chav and be proud.

Of course, being a chav, you probably wouldn’t think of that.