# Chav



## timpeac

I notice that people have asked what a chav is. I came across this - pictures from a chav wedding which seem to illustrate the principal perfectly.

Enjoy! (transitively or intransitively, the choice is yours)

http://www.sportnetwork.net/main/s105/st80039.htm

PS look out for the final fantastic group photo.


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## VenusEnvy

Sorry, Tim, but I'm still confused. So, chav means tacky, or revealing? ?? The discussion in the thead displayed in the link didn't shed any light for me. Am I dense?


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## timpeac

VenusEnvy said:
			
		

> Sorry, Tim, but I'm still confused. So, chav means tacky, or revealing? ?? The discussion in the thead displayed in the link didn't shed any light for me. Am I dense?


 
Here is an article that explains brilliantly (and very fairly) what it means.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-cha2.htm


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## panjandrum

Are you a chav?

Check post #14 in THIS THREAD


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## duder

VenusEnvy said:
			
		

> Sorry, Tim, but I'm still confused. So, chav means tacky, or revealing? ?? The discussion in the thead displayed in the link didn't shed any light for me. Am I dense?



A chav is a type of person, although I guess you could also use the adjectival forms "chavvy", "chavtastic", etc.   

The concept is pretty particular to the UK and I would say really doesn't have an AE equivalent (although people sometimes suggest a few off-color terms, I tend to disagree).

Try a Google search for "Devvo" if you would like to see some expletive-laden satire on chavs.


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## SweetMommaSue

From those pictures, it looks to me as though they are the exact opposite of our yuppies. . .(oooops. . . am I dating myself again?)

The attire is so extremely distasteful as to appear to be a parody or a spoof on something. . . I can hardly believe that people would actually WANT to appear in public like that!  

I do not know if we have an American equivalent for this.

This is a great thread for the Cultures forum!  Imagine . . . we could find out if such folks/styles as this exist in other areas of the world!  Though, I would hope not. . . one place is quite enough.


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## cuchuflete

Tim,
Please may I combine this with the ish/esque thread?

grotesque
ugli-ish
weirdiferous

On this side of the puddle, we take such specimens, dress them up nicely, and make congressmen of them.


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## GenJen54

I don't know that the US has chavs in the sense that they exist in parts of Great Britain.  We do have our share of individuals whose taste in clothing and hairstyles is questionable. 

Most often, these people are lumped into cultural sub-groups such as "rednecks,"  "trailer trash," and "mullets."


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## Rach404

We have a lot of chavs in London.....chav is basically a reference to what they wear, ie very tacky clothing, tracksuit bottoms all the time, fake burberry clothes, especially the baseball caps....you can spot them a mile off, and they get a lot of stick for it, but deservedly so, as the ones I know are not very nice people at all. There is a lot in the newspapers here about chavs...in fact the first time I heard "chav" was in a newspaper, before that, we called them "roodies"...or in Kent they are called "townies", I don't know about anywhere else.


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## Jad

Go to *ChavScum * and *glasgowsurvival* to find out more about Chavs


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## cuchuflete

For the antropologically inclined, here's a glossary of chavspeak:

http://www.newcastlestuff.com/charver/dictionary.html


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## jess oh seven

in Scotland they're called "neds" (non-educated delinquents )
they're everywhere and regularly cause havoc outside my place of work


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## cirrus

Please don't knock em, without them neither me nor my partner wouldn't have any work or be able to pay our ridiculous mortgage!  I am running a children's centre and getting parents trained and into work, my partner runs sexual health and drug harm reduction programmes.


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## Vanda

In Brazil we name them : *brega.*


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## nycphotography

Vanda said:
			
		

> In Brazil we name them : *brega.*


 
American current terms:

"Ghetto fabulous" or just plain Ghetto

trash / trashy / poor white trash / trailer trash

But in english, its really just another new word for TACKY.


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## Isotta

But I feel like it is much more specific in England than "trailer trash," no?

Z.


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## nycphotography

Isotta said:
			
		

> But I feel like it is much more specific in England than "trailer trash," no?
> 
> Z.


 
It's more like "trailer trash gets all dressed up".


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## .   1

I have now heard the term 'chav' used as an insult but I do not know what it means.
I would value any input.

.,,


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## Tatzingo

Hi,

"Chav" is strictly BE and has come about in the last couple of years. 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=definition+chav&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

This provides a good link to wikipedia and Urbandictionary's definitions.I'm also fairly sure that other threads are available on the sam subject.

Tatz.


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## don maico

The only Australian equivalent I can think of is Ocker although Chav is more of a youth cult. They could yet make an appearance down under


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## Alxmrphi

Ugh, do we have to talk about Chavs!?!?!?
I'll just get angry.

A Chav, is just a horrible little sewage creature that hangs around with other sewage chavs and cause trouble and start fights and harrass old people and are the reason that HELL should exist, for them.

I hope wikipedia has been more helpful to you.
(in Liverpool we call them scallies, I've heard we're the only place that don't call them chav's, I also know Newcastle and a few other places call them "townies".. but "townies" has developed a new meaning of, someone who dresses like a chav, but without the attitude or lifestyle, which makes them, sort of "ok")


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## ForzaItalia

It depends on which part of England you live in. Ey op chav has been used as a term of endearment in Newark on Trent for decades which roughly translates as 'How are you doing mate?'.

The media during the last few years have used the term to describe low lifes who go around using anti-social behaviour and usually dress in track suits, baseball caps and lots of bling bling.


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## Tatzingo

Alex_Murphy said:


> Ugh, do we have to talk about Chavs!?!?!?
> I'll just get angry.
> 
> A Chav, is just a horrible little sewage creature that hangs around with other sewage chavs and cause trouble and start fights and harrass old people and are the reason that HELL should exist, for them.
> 
> I hope wikipedia has been more helpful to you.
> (in Liverpool we call them scallies, I've heard we're the only place that don't call them chav's, I also know Newcastle and a few other places call them "townies".. but "townies" has developed a new meaning of, someone who dresses like a chav, but without the attitude or lifestyle, which makes them, sort of "ok")



Actually, we call them Scallies here in Manchester too. In Newcastle, i believe the correct term of endearment is "You filthy Charver."

Tatz.


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## Alxmrphi

Well, it makes sense that Manchester might because we're so close to one another, didn't have a clue about that Newcastle thing though, that took me by surprise.

Can we go burn some Chavs please ?


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## don maico

A few examples of chavs :

http://www.fat-pie.com/chavs.htm


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## Alxmrphi

Thank you so much for that link, I needed that big laugh!


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## don maico

Cant quite understand why this thread has been moved in here. Its a cultural topic surely


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## Alxmrphi

Didn't even realise, I come in through email links.
I think a mod connected it to another thread on Chav's, but if it was a cultural thing, I'd ask for it to be moved back into CD.


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## gbf

For more informations see the Romani Project of the lincuistic Department of the University of Manchester.
Ciao, chav!


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## .   1

Thanks for the quick response.
This does seem to  be cultural as much as linguistic (as if linguistics and culture could ever be separated)
I am guessing but it would appear that a chav dresses like a bogan and acts like a yob.

.,,


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## Alxmrphi

Pretty much, yes.


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## cirrus

don maico said:


> The only Australian equivalent I can think of is Ocker although Chav is more of a youth cult. They could yet make an appearance down under


Kath and Kim could be blazing the trail, they are fairly chavvy.


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## Alxmrphi

cirrus... Kath and Kim aren't Chavs, or at least where the word Chav originated, in the UK, Chav is about the "attitude", Kath and Kim don't have the attitude of Chavs.


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## Kelly B

<Moderator note: sorry for the confusion. This thread was merged from two: an old one in English only, and a new one in Cultural. The question is still, as far as I can tell, "what does this (British) English word mean?" and that belongs here.>


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## cirrus

Alex_Murphy said:


> cirrus... Kath and Kim aren't Chavs, or at least where the word Chav originated, in the UK, Chav is about the "attitude", Kath and Kim don't have the attitude of Chavs.


 
So maybe it's a regional thing then. In London chav has gone from people wearing burberry and various other labels to just being plain tasteless and working class.


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## Alxmrphi

Yeah, but you can "dress like a chav"... but it would be "dressing like a chav", "chav" is about attitude to society, dirty scruffy, bullies who start fights and rob cars and burn them, and throw bricks at windows and harrass old people, even hit them for no reason.

Let's not even get into the Happy-Slap craze. Can we burn them yet?


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## cirrus

Clearly it doesn't mean the same thing up north then. I wouldn't think dirty, I'd just think not classy.


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## pepita perez

Hello! Does anyone know where this word comes from?


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## beppo

From Dictionary of contemporary slang by T.Thorne : "...The word originates as Romany for 'friend'... a vulgar person, representative of the working class or underclass. A vogue term and concept from 2004,defined by the Sunday Telegraph as '... the non-respectable working classes : the dole-scroungers, petty criminals, football hooligans and teenage pram-pushers'. Also charv,charva. Check www.chavscum.co.uk


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## clairanne

Hi

The actual word is an abbreviation of the word " chavi" which is a Romany word meaning small child. We sometimes call "Chavs" "pikeys" around here so it is obviously connected to the travellers in some way - 

Here are two excerpts from 'phrases org bulletin board' which mentions them both:

"I can add pikey, from a person who travelled the turnpikes, and chav, from the Romany chavi a child". 

'Chav styles and mores seem to take up more and more space in the public sphere, and more and more seem to be a focus of imitation by non-chavs: baseball caps, tattoos, swearing, spitting, fighting, calling your children Armani and Lexus.'


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## Alxmrphi

Chavs and Pikeys are not the same thing at all, maybe in some origin the vast majority of the public don't know about, but generally speaking, to all who know the word "Chav" - nothing to do with Pikey/traveller.


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## cuchuflete

More about Pikeys here:  http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=27736


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## clairanne

Hi

I know they don't mean the same Alex Murphy, but in our area people who dress in a "chav" fashion and live in the lower class end of town are called "pikeys" by the other kids.
When I was a child at school in the East Sussex countryside, the locals called the "rag and bone" men and the "scrap metal merchants" "pikeys.  They were mostly ex travellers who lived in caravans, we were not really encouraged to mix with them because they had a different way of life and their own community.  Some of the old women used to say they were descended from Romanies - That is how the two names got connected round here.


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## winklepicker

Tatzingo said:


> "Chav" is strictly BE and has come about in the last couple of years.


 

Chav is older than you (and most dictionaries) think. When we used it in  the 1970s it was applied to young men who wore black slip-on shoes and black trousers with white socks.

With the economic growth of the last 35 years, it is (or was) Burberry.


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## winklepicker

clairanne said:


> Hi
> 
> people who dress in a "chav" fashion and live in the lower class end of town are called "pikeys" by the other kids... descended from Romanies - That is how the two names got connected round here.


 
Pikeys are properly Romanies who have been cast out by their tribe. See this and this. Non-Romany gypsies are didikoi.

Kushti bokt.


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## audiolaik

Hello,

How popular is the word _chav_ (the lower class; uneducated and ignorant people)? 

Is it restricted exclusively to BrE?

How should one pronounce the word?

SOURCE

SOURCE 2

Thank you


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## Monkey F B I

It's limited to BE, but as far as I know it's pretty widely used there.

On another note, is chav a shortened form of chauvinist?


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## Matching Mole

Moderator note:

I have appended the previous two posts to this existing thread on the word "chav".


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## bibliolept

It's common in BE and, as far as I known, not used popularly or barely even known elsewhere.

You may find these threads interesting:
'Asbo' and 'chav' make dictionary
what does chav mean ?


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## Loob

I was going to ask if you'd looked for previous threads, audio 

I think a read of the previous discussions, and a look at some of the links, will get you closer to a definition (it doesn't really mean "the lower class; uneducated and ignorant people"). 

The pronunciation is like "chap", but with a "v" at the end.

How popular is it? I seem to hear/see it less than I did a few years ago, but it's definitely still current.

No, it doesn't come from chauvinist, Monkey. As the earlier posts in this merged thread indicate (so did one of audio's links) it's originally Romany.


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## Franzi

audiolaik said:


> Hello,
> 
> How popular is the word _chav_ (the lower class; uneducated and ignorant people)?
> 
> Is it restricted exclusively to BrE?


 
I wouldn't expect most people in the US to recognize the word unless they had significant exposure to British culture. I have never heard it used to refer to _all _uneducated, lower class people, only a specific group of people in the UK. If I wanted to describe (or insult) an uneducated, lower class American, I'd choose a different term.


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## Matching Mole

You could hardly get away from the word in the UK a year or two ago, but things seem to have calmed down (displaced slightly by "emo" as a buzzword). However it is still commonly heard and nothing, to my knowledge, has replaced it. I'm not sure whether chavs still wear bling 'n' Burberry; I would hope they have moved on a bit by now, but whatever they may be wearing, I think we will continue to call them chavs for some time to come.


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## Broccolicious

Apparently 'chavvy chic' is an emerging trend: non-chavs wearing chavvy clothes in an ironic manner. A difficult look to pull off, I would think!


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## Nunty

Moderator note:

Please remember to use the Dictionary and Thread Title Search before opening a new thread. There a couple of interesting threads about _chav_. I'll merge this query with one of them. 

Nunty


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## Nunty

It seems that we have explored any and all possible meanings and applications of the word _chav_ at least once, so the thread is now closed.

If someone has new insights to add, please send me or any of the English Only moderators a PM and we will consider re-opening the thread.

Thank you.

Nunty, moderator


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