Chav and Fiesta

The second Sunday of August local Fiesta starts in Pontevedra (more info about this in Colin's Website). If you're planning to come here it migth not be a good idea to come at that time. The city gets full of people, parking is almost impossible and driving as well. Walking in certain streets can be awful and sometimes painful (psychologically, I mean). But, if you're interested in human beings and like to be an anthropologist, it migth be wonderful. I started this year a new hobby I call "chavspotting" and it consists on having a coffee in a terrace on a crowdy street and oberve the people that cross the street. It's really funny, I enjoy it a lot. Of course it's better to be with somebody else that likes the same hobby so you can comment the different dresses, attitudes, etc...

I migth explain what a chav is for anybody that don't know what a chav is. In my town we call them "marulos" and the origins of that name escapes my knoledge, anyway I'll try to find out. I have stolen a definition from the Babylon Online Glossary, here it is:

chav:
So-called peasant underclass.

History, etymology, synonyms:
The press in Britain has recently been having fun mocking a group called "non-educated delinquents" and "the burgeoning peasant underclass". The subjects of these derogatory descriptions are said to be set apart by ignorance, fecklessness, mindless violence and bad taste. Thus, critics point to their style of dress: a love of flashy gold jewellery; the wearing of white trainers; clothes in fashionable brands with very prominent logos; and baseball caps, frequently in Burberry check, a favourite style. The women, the Daily Mail wrote, "pull their shoddily dyed hair back in that ultra-tight bun known as a 'council-house facelift', wear skirts too short for their mottled blue thighs, and expose too much of their distressingly flabby midriffs".

Much of the attention is due to the experience of a Web site http://www.chavscum.co.uk. There is the wide variety of local names given to the type. Scots call them "neds" (an acronym of "non-educated delinquents", as folk etymology suppose; but it is probably from a nickname for "Edward", linked to yobbish youths through a previous generation of young louts, the teddy boys, "teddy" being an abbreviated form of "Edwardian"). Liverpudlians prefer "scallies" (a term of long-standing for a boisterous, disruptive or irresponsible young man); "Kev" is common around London (presumably from Kevin, popularised through the portrayal on his television show by the comedian Harry Enfield of an idiotic teenager with that name). Other terms are "janners" (from Plymouth), "smicks", "spides", "moakes" and "steeks" (all from Belfast), plus "bazzas", "scuffheads", "stigs", "stangers", "yarcos", and "kappa slappers" (girls who wear Kappa brand tracksuits, "slapper" being British slang for a promiscuous or vulgar woman). The term that has become especially widely known is borrowed for the name of the Web site, "chav". Maybe, it derived from the name of the town of Chatham in Kent. But it seems that the word is from a much older underclass, the gypsies, many of whom have lived in that area for generations.

"Chav" is almost certainly from the Romany word for a child, "chavi", recorded from the middle of the nineteenth century. It was being used as a term of address to an adult man a little later in the century, but it hasn't often been recorded in print since and its derivative "chav" is quite new to most people. Other terms for the class also have Romany connections; another is "charver", Romany for prostitute. Yet another is the deeply insulting "pikey", presumably from the Kentish dialect term for gypsy that was borrowed from "turnpike", so a person who travels the roads. And so, a term that has been in active but low-level use for the last 150 years suddenly bursting out into wider popular use in a new sense through circumstances we don't fully understand.

Now, that you know what a chav is I'll tell you about the recent talks I had with my english friends. They're always saying that youth dresses really badly in England (marulo style) and I can't wait to practice my favourite hobby there, but I had a lot of practice here 'cause I guess we're having the same marulo stylished youth. My friend Faye was saying her sister told her about the increasing bad taste in Pontevedra's youth dressing, and as for me the change must be slow 'cause I didn't realize it yet. But now I see, it's true. They have those new fashionable jeans with short t-shirts allowing the rest of the mortals to see what we shouldn't see. All that fat, bellies, tatoos, tangas, ... Completed with the most horrible trainers. Colors that my mum never allowed me to wear (she's sensible).

All these makes me think about women liberation. All those feminists fought to allow our daughters to dress like whores (actually the whores don't dress like that). I know it sounds really hard, but it's true, just try and practice CHAVSPOTTING.

I promise I'll speak about London chavs.

Anyway, more info about chavs in http://www.chavscum.co.uk