I didn’t know the word “chav” was used in America, but wonder if it has a slightly different meaning then it does in the UK? It’s not (although frequently is used as) a derogative term for the “Working Class” or poor, but for people who willingly live on benefits from the state rather than work. The reason it gets used so much is that some of the tabloids newspapers here glamorised “Chav culture” (The Sun – “Proud to be Chav”), and I guess it lost it’s meaning to most people along the way. Which is not to say that it isn’t a really horrible word, but the comic made me wonder.
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Huh, that’s a lot of quote marks, hope I used them correctly.
[...] Authors Note: I am aware of “hipster” generally being a throw-away word, however it fits the purposes of generally describing people who are young, urban, and “hip.” It may evoke images of a particular subset that is totally unrelated to the whole group at large, but this most definitely is meant to represent a larger group of those who are young and urban. Here is a possibly relevant link. [...]
@ Michael – if I’m not mistaken, isn’t it a sort of ackronym (possibly even a backronym) for Council Housed and Violent? Sort of roving street gangs of kids on benefits that go violent simply because they can? I may be working off of some sort of old definition here …
February 26th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
…I’m picturing the feminist costume as a “This is what a feminist looks like” tee.
April 6th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
I didn’t know the word “chav” was used in America, but wonder if it has a slightly different meaning then it does in the UK? It’s not (although frequently is used as) a derogative term for the “Working Class” or poor, but for people who willingly live on benefits from the state rather than work. The reason it gets used so much is that some of the tabloids newspapers here glamorised “Chav culture” (The Sun – “Proud to be Chav”), and I guess it lost it’s meaning to most people along the way. Which is not to say that it isn’t a really horrible word, but the comic made me wonder.
…
Huh, that’s a lot of quote marks, hope I used them correctly.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:25 am
[...] Authors Note: I am aware of “hipster” generally being a throw-away word, however it fits the purposes of generally describing people who are young, urban, and “hip.” It may evoke images of a particular subset that is totally unrelated to the whole group at large, but this most definitely is meant to represent a larger group of those who are young and urban. Here is a possibly relevant link. [...]
January 8th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Best thing ever.
May 28th, 2010 at 7:55 am
@ Michael – if I’m not mistaken, isn’t it a sort of ackronym (possibly even a backronym) for Council Housed and Violent? Sort of roving street gangs of kids on benefits that go violent simply because they can? I may be working off of some sort of old definition here …