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

[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....