Re:Writing for Snobs
by bobthechef on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @09:35PM
(#24488699)
That's quite universal, I think. The aspirational and the nouveaus tend to overdo it. They're out of their element, so they either indulge their existing habits and aspirations, behave unnaturally, or overcompensate according to what they think it means to be "upper class". It takes three generations or so for the habits, attitudes, concerns, and sensibilities to sink in. By then, their children and grandchildren are likely to have squandered their wealth.
Disclaimer: my knowledge of British culture is horribly outdated, and mostly draws from George Mikes' "How to be an alien" and TV shows.
I always thought that truly high society in Britain sometimes wears rags, and the neat clothing was a sign of either working class or "new riches". George Mikes makes fun of this:
> On Sundays on the Continent even the poorest person puts on his best suit, tries to look respectable, and at the same time the life of the country becomes gay and cheerful; in England even the richest peer or motor-manufacturer dresses in some peculiar rags, does not shave, and the country becomes dull and dreary.
But it's not just his opinion; for example in the TV show "Traitors", set in postwar London, a character coming from a high society family derides someone for dressing "too well", signalling lower class/new riches, and because of how he pronounces "opera" (according to her, it's "opera" for the lower classes, and "op'ra" for the higher classes).