James Banner is Director of Marketing and of External Courses at Hilderstone College (www.hilderstone.ac.uk), Broadstairs, UK. He directed the Cambridge/RSA DipTFLA programme which Hilderstone College piloted in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh and a Certificate programme in ELT with Kent Adult Education and the University of Kent. He has taught and lectured for schools, universities and the British Council in Brazil, Turkey, Dubai, South Africa, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Austria, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Switzerland. He has published articles on language, methodology and culture, and is author of the Language Corner, for Longman-Langenscheidt www.youandmelink.com
The biggest media buzz word of 2006 had to be chav. No one is quite sure where it comes from but it is thought to have originated in Chatham and Rochester, Kent. It is probable that Chav comes from Chavi, a Gypsy/Romany word for child. In Kent it has long been used to refer to an underclass or, perhaps, petty-criminal underclass. Chav was also used as a verb to mean take or borrow without permission - it was common to hear school kids say something like, "Who’s chav’d my biscuits?"
However, over the last two years popular culture and the press have taken up this word and it has spread all over the country. It is now used to refer not only to an underclass but to a vulgar, materialistic and uneducated style of living.
Chavs
Of course, no one would call themselves a real chav. A chav is always somebody else - he or she had to be lower down the food chain or educational and social ladder than oneself. People use chav to refer to someone they despise as being less educated or less cultured than themselves but there is also something else: a chav has to have some sort of attitude problem, has to be "in your face" in some way. Perhaps it’s their lack of humility - their sense of being at the centre of the universe and at the leading edge of fashion - that irritates the rest of us so much.
From my perspective as a grumpy, middle-aged, middle-class chap, chavs are people who are vulgar, probably don’t work, wear cheap jewellery and gold chains, white caps and/or hoodies, hang round in shopping centres during the day, watch TV at night, probably live in a council estate, but not necessarily. They don’t do reading and they don’t do gardening. They drink lager but not bitter (traditional English beer), maybe cider or sweet white wine but not red wine. They probably watch football but probably don’t play it; they don’t watch cricket or rugby. They don’t do jogging or cycling, unless it is running from the police or hanging round town centres on BMXs. They eat out of tins or at hamburger bars. Whereas the middle class like a labrador or golden retriever for a pet, the chav will go for the pit bull terrier. They love designer labels but buy most of their clothes from sports shops. Their kids often have exotic names: Stacie, Jackie, Tracie are no longer good enough. Nowadays it’s likely to be Renee, Carlotta, Colleen, Charmaine and, most wonderful of all, Chardonnay!
Chavettes
Chav girls, known as chavettes by the press, wear looped earrings, tattoos and piercings and have their hair tied up tightly in a bun, which pulls their facial skin so severely upwards that it is known as the "council facelift".
However, if I went up to a group of what I perceive to be chavs and asked them to define a chav, I am sure they would describe someone lower down their social scale - maybe someone with cheaper trainers or caps, smaller televisions, or someone who drives a Skoda rather than a Ford Escort, or who rides a bicycle.
Do you speak Chavish?
I should also mention that to be a real chav you have be fairly inarticulate. I think the general idea is that you have to speak in such a way as to be understood only by a very limited discourse community – i.e. one’s immediate friends and age group. In fact, I can tell you a joke about this:
A chav goes into a pub with a parrot on his shoulder. The barman says: “Where did you get that?!”
The parrot answers, “I found him hanging round in the shopping arcade! “
Chavitude
Anyway, the press has taken up the term and takes great delight in detecting elements of chav, chavitude, at all levels of society. It has been pointed out that even in the Royal Family elements of chavitude are creeping in: the Queen likes "reality" TV programmes like "I’m a Celebrity"; Prince Harry has been seen in clubs wearing white baseball caps; Princess Anne has a vicious bull terrier which bites the servants; Zara Philips has had her tongue pierced and Andrew, I’m sure, doesn’t do reading. At this rate, it is feared, soon the whole of British society will be influenced by chav, except for Prince Charles and the Archbishop of Canterbury!
High Chav
The papers also delight in describing the large amounts of chav in the Beckhams - especially in Victoria, who has all the elements of council chic, including the baseball cap, council face lift, trainers and track suit bottoms or tight leggings etc. The Beckhams are a sort of high chav (a fashion statement like high trash or high kitsch). Not everybody would see that as true chav. However, somebody that everybody would agree has a real chav element is Wayne Rooney’s girlfriend, Colleen. She has posed for the newspapers in white leggings and tops, baseball cap, looped earrings and gold chains. Colleen has become a chav icon - the chav’s chav!
Chav Night
I said earlier that no one would refer to himself or herself as a real chav but as a term to describe a style or fashion it is being used more freely and self-referentially now. You see discos advertising "Chav Night" and some kids are starting to refer to themselves as chavs, as opposed to goths (kids who dress in black, with black eye shadow and whitened faces and net stockings), punks and skaters/skateboarders.
Last month IKEA opened a new branch in Edmonton, a deprived area of north London. Local advertising announcing cut price offers attracted over 4,000 eager bargain hunters to the opening. When the doors opened the crowd surged in - the security guards were swept aside. One enormous woman was seen pushing her way in, screaming with delight. The rush got out of control and people were trampled under foot. The Daily Star came out with one of the funniest and cruellest headlines that I have seen in years:
CHAVALANCHE!*
