The UK is home to an array of accents and dialects, but none are quite as conspicuous (given our class-obsessed society) as the posh ones.
It’s easy for most to tell whether you’re ‘old money’ based on how you speak; nobody would confuse the King’s English to cockney drawl, for example.
According to experts though, the range of vocabulary is also a key factor in giving away person’s social standing.
In Kate Fox’s 2014 best seller, Watching the English, the social anthropologist claims one word you may notice the upper middle class using more than others is the term ‘sofa’.
Another popular choice for the upper echelons is ‘beastly’, while Britain’s well heeled are also known to describe rugby as ‘rugger’ in conversation.
Things are changing though, and the words that once made the cut as posh are adapting to more recent times, as are the ones that suggest you’re anything but.
So what are they and how are they determined? We’ve got all the answers.
How are ‘posh’ words determined?
In the 1950s, Professor Alan Ross of linguistics at the University of Birmingham wrote a paper claiming he had discovered certain differences between England’s upper class and the other classes.
Listing pronunciation, grammar and use of specific words as contributing behaviours, Ross’s findings were not based on research but his own beliefs – also known as armchair linguistics.
Despite being referenced regularly to this day, there have been few very fact checks on the words Ross claimed were upper class, which included loo, napkin and sofa. Until now.
A recent study conducted by George Bailey and Eddie O’Hara Brown compared the supposed upper-class words with their assumed non-upper-class counterparts – toilet, serviette, and settee – in a study with 80 participants of different ages, genders and social classes.
Asking participants to use the words in a sentence while they were focused on a task, like describing a picture of the item, in an effort to examine their natural usage, the academics made some surprising discoveries.
What posh words have changed?
Bailey and O’Hara Brown’s research found that napkin and sofa, once ‘upper-class’ words, were the most commonly used terms among the case studies, as was the assumed non-upper-class word toilet.
They noted that 72 participants used the word napkin compared to 18 who used serviette, thus challenging Ross’s claims. They ruled that if a word is of common usage, it ‘cannot be a reliable indicator of upper classness.’
Some words, however, were less of a clean-cut ruling. Loo for example was most likely to be used by older subjects participating in the study, regardless of class, as were the words serviette and settee.
What words are assumed to be posh?
A second study, conducted by the same experts, focused on its 100 participants’ opinions as well, asking whether they believed certain words are used by people who are perceived to be of higher social standing.
To prompt their opinions, they asked subjects to look at various social media posts and determine the writer’s class. The subjects were then split into two groups, with each post featuring a stereotypically ‘posh’ option and a ‘not so posh’ alternative.
One post read: ‘My flatmate went to a wedding and I brought takeaway, was almost done eating before I saw something that looks like a fried egg, put it in my mouth and it was a napkin/serviette. God why me!?’
It seems perception varies from person to person, as participants of the higher socioeconomic group noted that sofa sounded more posh, while those in the lower socioeconomic group said settee was.
As for toilet and loo, they were regarded as the same status socially, while serviette was thought to be more posh than napkin.
Overall, the study found that while they have seen some changes since Ross’s initial findings, there are still ‘class-based vocabulary markers in contemporary British English,’ and that ‘class-based accent and dialect discrimination are unfortunately still alive and well.’
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