What is a "chav"?
Class wars, Class War style
I thought it was from the Gypsy word for petty criminal. If you watch a group of chavs attack students/goths/middle class types, you can understand them developing unhealthy revenge fantasies. The daily humiliation the mop-tops suffer at the hands of the Burberry clans is fascinating to watch.
There's a lot of different explanations for the word, I thought the gypsy word was for child.
Basically chavs are people who wear crap clothes and are looked down upon. Mostly lumpenproletariat, but often used to insult the working class too. At universities they sometimes have 'chav nights' where the girls bring brown babies. Gives you an idea of the thought behind it.
The word appeared from nowhere a few years ago.
Whilst the crime rate has decreased since 1997, I think the nature of it has changed. I mean Door Stewards getting shot and geezers getting killed for shouting at kiddies vandalising stuff and that, it never used to happen did it? Happy slapping as self fulfilling prophecy, I don't know. It’s just an ongoing mockery of what grown-ups conventionally think of as “nice”. Teenagers have always been a bit sadistic and that, and there’s been a history of serious delinquency in the States since the mid 60’s and stuff. Maybe it’s just some Clockwork Orange style hormonal law-of-the-jungle fantasy mixed with a lack of “real belief” in religious authority. Or maybe their daddies aren’t around to give them the hiding they need, or their families are such losers that they don’t command respect.
Well once you ascribe something a name and an element of notoriety, of course certain individuals will see it as an invitation. One need only look at a summit protest to see my point. Teenage deliquency was pretty bad over here in the 60s: mods vs rockers? I think it's part of the middle aged, yes middle class LR agenda of increased conservatism caused by upward social mobility and increased atomisation. We do live under the illusion of being more affluent today than the previous generation, and so our immediate priorities are protecting our assets.
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our immediate priorities are protecting our assets.
'course kiddies have always fronted each other. Desiring nothing more than to humiliate peer groups on the urban savannah and occasionally ruck with cops, but nowadays they’re breaking out off their teenage niches and fronting anyone who doesn’t look like they could end them.
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what's happy slapping?
Belting someone, filming it on your mobile and sharing it about.
john wrote:
what's happy slapping?
Happy slapping is attacking someone, filming it on your mobile then passing it round to your mates/putting it on the net. Was big in the news, including really nasty stuff like stabbings and rapes. But contrary to what alan says the media mostly blamed black kids from south london, not chavs - who are white culturally working class youths who wear sportswear, baseball caps etc. As you can see there's debate about where the term comes from. Other words meaning similar things are pikeys, townies, spides, etc. The media crap about chavs and happy slapping has kinda died down now.
yeah i thought that but iirc the medics i used to hang out with used it on any "anti-social person". i may be getting confused with 'scally', but i remember - i didn't have 'working class' tbh back then... but i dunno it used to make me feel very uncomfortable with them.
maybe it was un-articulated expression again the work ethic on my part [you do need to have a work ethic as a doctor]. i dunno but i didn't like many medics.
eta: yeah i hasten to add that i didn't have 'anarchist music/lifestyle' either...
eta2: grafiti maybe 
John. wrote:
contrary to what alan says the media mostly blamed black kids from south london, not chavs - who are white culturally working class youths who wear sportswear, baseball caps etc.
I missed the racial angle on it. I also think to claim that chavs are white is a bit of a generalisation. I guess you're right that there is something rather provincial to the chav and you don't really find that many in London. Well probably in some shithole like Hackney...
Alan, the only white people in Hackney are Barleys, Poles and pensioners. Happy slapping I agree was mainly blamed on black kids, not on chavs as far as I know.
There used to be a whole range of words for "chavs" (which didn't necessarily have as many negative overtones as chav which seems to pack them all into one), with a lot of regional variation as well. In Essex we had "Garys" which by the time you got 50 miles north to Cambridge it was apparently "Barrys". When I was a teenager it was just an inter-subcultural thing the way you'd call people goths or whatever - never applied to people over about 20, and it was used mainly by other teenagers. I used to know about 10-20 versions but can't remember now.
Townies we had, and that specifically referred to "kids in sportswear - who hang around town centres" - so had similar negative connotations to chav I guess. I'd never heard of "chav" until the media shite about it though, and I thought it came from Chatham.
According to a mate of mine from Woking the term chavi has been used around the area since he was a kid, he's thirty odd now. It comes from a traveller word for "little lad" and was generally used the same way most people use "mate" or "pal".
Not sure if it's rom or irish traveller, probably rom.
The film in question can be seen here:
http://bebo.com/FlashBox.jsp?FlashBoxId=568349423&MID=3611618708
Alan wrote:
John. wrote:
contrary to what alan says the media mostly blamed black kids from south london, not chavs - who are white culturally working class youths who wear sportswear, baseball caps etc.I missed the racial angle on it. I also think to claim that chavs are white is a bit of a generalisation. I guess you're right that there is something rather provincial to the chav and you don't really find that many in London. Well probably in some shithole like Hackney...
catch wrote:
Alan, the only white people in Hackney are Barleys, Poles and pensioners.
Yeah sorry alan think you better live in London a bit longer before you can slag me off about stuff like that.
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There used to be a whole range of words for "chavs" (which didn't necessarily have as many negative overtones as chav which seems to pack them all into one), with a lot of regional variation as well. In Essex we had "Garys" which by the time you got 50 miles north to Cambridge it was apparently "Barrys".
That's very funny.
Saii wrote:
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pikeysThat's specific to Irish travellers.
That's where it came from, yeah but lots of people use it as a general term.
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=61236&in_page_id=34
What a bunch of tools.