weird questions

[rm]

1. Patty and I are having a discussion and we need you to help resolve it: How old do you have to be to be a "cougar?"

1a. Patty wants to know where "cougar" comes from?
ETA: According to the Wikipedia entry on the subject, it is socially acceptable to date peopel who are half your age + seven years. Which is to say my relationship with Patty = not socially acceptable, and that's before (or after) you even get to the lesbian thing. Woo! Go us.)

2. I'm still reeling from the horrible people at the bar last night: What is the American equivalent of a "chav?" Everything everyone suggested last night wasn't quite right. We certainly have the equivalent, but I am not sure we have a word for it (legacy of our delusion that our society is not class-based?).

Comments

[iamradar.livejournal.com]

I think being a "Couger" is a derivitive of "Being on the prowl".

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

re: #2... wow, that's a really good question because, yeah, I'm not coming up with an easy answer. I can tell you what it's NOT - not white-trash, not an indie-urban punk...

*scritches head*

Damn.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Right, I had to keep explaining how it wasn't white trash or yuppies or nouveau riche, which were all things people sort of offered, and then I would clarify more on chav attributes and we never found anything. I sort of kept describing it as trailer trash with a lot of Coach handbags or spending all their rent money on bad fashion they think is high fashion, but that still doesn't even begin to get at it.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

In terms of taste and style, the closest I can come up - and even this misses the boat - is the tackier sort of rap star...

Cripes. This is going to keep me awake!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Here in NYC I'm realizing that "Bridge & Tunnel" is getting closer to it, but not all B&Ts would be chavs, because it would totally depend on what hideous fashion statement was going with their B&Tness.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

*nods* B&Ts with a slavish devotion to Burberry would be somewhat approximate, yes...

[rm.livejournal.com]

I need one syllable though! Or at least one word.

We're now talking about how close or not "guido" is, which doesn't really work because it's racial and transcends economic variations, but there's a definite aesthetic link there.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm unfamiliar with "guido" although I think I could make an educated guess...

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, think The Sopranos, but they can be rich or poor as long as they are Italian, tacky and badly behaved.

[alabastard.livejournal.com]

hmmm, nothing really matches, but guido, wigger, and the like come closest.

[hodsthorn.livejournal.com]

As a Queens native who spent a year living in London, I'm going to have to go with an ethnicity-neutral "guido" as the closest we've got--but the newer breed of guido, the ones who take their fashion tips primarily from rap videos.

Back in the 80s, we used to refer to non-Italian guidos as "guigenes"; I'm not sure whether that term survives anywhere outside Northern Boulevard, though.

[alterjess.livejournal.com]

B&T was the closest parallel I could come up with when I was discussing S2 of Who online last year. Except of course that trying to define one piece of very local slang by using another piece of very local slang is only useful if everyone involved in the conversation is from either one place or the other, which doesn't really work on the internet.

[drfardook.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure we have the economic space for chavdom in the US. It seems to rely on relatively solidly paying blue collar work which really isn't all that available in urban areas these days. Either you're working service jobs and don't have enough money or you have a good union job and live on Long Island.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Soooo....

Chav = Britney Spears or Paris Hilton?

N.

[delicatetbone.livejournal.com]

That's how I would describe bored new jersey housewives....

[monkeycurious.livejournal.com]

I think the cougar thing depends on who you ask.

It is generally an "older" woman who try to "score" with younger men in bars.

I think they mean 35+ years old. This can be a desirable woman, a MILF, or not, depending.

Cougar seems to come from the prowling cat aspect, and it may also come from the notion that "they" would strike when the prey is weakest, eg - drunk and horny and striking out.

When I first heard it, it was not desirable amongst younger men, but it seems to be becoming more desirable.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that it was generally a woman in her later 30s - so, 35 and up.

Interestingly, when Kim and I got together she was 18 and I was 24. I got a lot of good natured "cradle robber" jokes, but never any real scorn over it.

[rufus.livejournal.com]

I think cougar is supposed to be 45+, or maybe 40+, not 35. Women who are supposed to be rendered asexual by age but are most emphatically not, or who are fresh from a divorce (or whatever) and looking to raise hell.

Also, I would have said "chav"="guido", ethnic associations or no ethnic associations. Also, my relatives who live down the Shore called them "Bennies", for whatever that might be worth.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

I think you were right re: Cougar - it used to be 40+, and now means 3something+.

There seems to be a *lot* of 35 year old women dating men in thei 20s right now. Right off the top of my head: my 22 year old cousin has a 35 year old GF, and my 25 y.o. coworker has a 33 y.o. GF.

It feels unusual because it's always been the other way round before the past couple of years. My guess is that women are finally like, "Wait a sec! I'm totally a hot career babe - why shouldn't I avail myself of the young & hot generation as men before me have done for years and years?"

It's all very interesting. Most of my friends (I'm 35) are married so I haven't been able to talk with any of these women to ask *their* perspective. Though my 25 y.o. coworker seems very happily smitten ;)

N.

[ithinkitisayit.livejournal.com]

I've read that women supposedly reach the peak of their sexuality in their 30s/40s, while men reach it in their 20s. Perhaps that could be a reason for it?

Though, I personally don't buy into that theory, myself. Before antidepressants killed my sex drive, I was horny as hell a lot of the time (of course, that could've been because I was 16, but still!).

[labellerose.livejournal.com]

I think a cougar=2-5 years older than a (female) speaker's present age.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I never took the 'cougar' thing that seriously, it seems more ridiculous to me than any real insult.

I don't know what a 'chav' is.

[heykatie.livejournal.com]

I don't think America has a real version of a chav. Being American, but having lived in the UK for 7 years, I've dealt with the real thing day in and day out, and there is nothing in the States that even comes CLOSE. Chav isn't just about fashion, nor about looks or behaviour or class. It's a bunch of attributes all together, and so far, I've not seen any American that fits the bill.

[ithinkitisayit.livejournal.com]

#2: Ignoramus?

[systris.livejournal.com]

wow, i actually did the math..and technically i AM a cougar since i recently hooked up with a just-turned 23 year old a couple weeks before my 31st birthday...i guess i should dress like Peg Bundy Going to Vegas and hit the Delaware Avenue clubs...yeesh...

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

So you're on the prowl?

[miep.livejournal.com]

I have never in my life heard either of those two terms.

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

The closest I can come to chav is 'cuginette'. But that's very regional. Jersey girl comes close, but again, regional. I think we could consider Peg Bundy a distinctly American chav. Did we have a name for her besides "trashy house wife"?

I think cougars are women 40+ who go for men in their 20s. But I don't know where it comes from. It's funny how that term has taken off in the Twilight fandom.

You can't be twice Patty's age. Aren't you 35 or 36? Oh, you mean less than 7 years plus? Oh well, something tells me you won't be too put out by it. ;-)

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

The prowl aspect I think is important for a "cougar."

Did you consider Patty "prey?"

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I've never heard the term "chav" either. From what I can gather via the comments, I'd suspect we don't have a word for it. Not because of any delusions about social class, but because the class structure here is so intricate and the codes differ so powerfully from region to region.

That is, it sounds to me as though what it refers to is a combination of (i) plenty of disposable cash; (ii) a blithe willingness to dispose of it (iii) and a visible, usually gaudy, lack of taste in the manner of said disposition.

But what this means, practically speaking, is that by old-money New York standards, almost all of Houston society looks pretty chav-like. As, of course, would any of the characters from "Sex and the City." Et cetera. So it makes sense that we wouldn't have exactly the same concept over here; instead, we'd have a whole bundle of not-precisely-analogous concepts filling roughly the same space.

Perhaps...

[citruscommando.livejournal.com]

I think the term you're looking for, though very much dated, is "cusine" (pron. "koo-zhine").

Assuming, of course, that this is what you're describing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JMOh-cul6M

[supremegoddess1.livejournal.com]

chav = redneck, hick, or white trash.

how old is patty and how old are you?

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm 35. She turned 24 a few days ago.

half my age + 7 requires her to be about 6 months older for us to be socially acceptable :0 and we both think it's hilarious.

[supremegoddess1.livejournal.com]

So does that mean that next year when you are 36 and she is 25 you shall becomes socially acceptable? ;)