Sidcup massive threatens Reg hack Veteran Reg readers may recall a couple of websites called sheppeyscum.com and Chatham Girls - both now defunct but in their day providing essential guides to the UK's fight capital and bow-legged Medway chavettes, respectively. Then, of course, came the online Sidcup resource, which we described as an illuminating stroll …
C'mon Lester, this is clearly a forgery. No-one (from anywhere, let alone Sidcup) could be so stupid as to come out with that stream of gibberish and be able to use email and a PC. Surely?
Does this paltry attempt at Kentish bad-mouthing stem from the whole Essex-Kent rivalry thing?
I must state my own bias here - I was born in Tunbridge Wells, dontcha'know.
The "Council Housed and Violent" derivation for chav has been batted around the Internet a bit, but there's no confirmation that it's at all true. Unless you know any cops who can confirm it and date it first hand? As far as what can be found on the Internet is concerned, equally likely is a derivation from the Romany "chavi" ("chava" and variations). Or some other equally inventive etymological origin.
Personally I favour the Romany one since, a while before I heard the term "chav" in common use, some of the guys I knew around Newcastle used to use the word "charver" to describe such people. That would probably have been around 2001-2002, but I don't know whether they had picked up the word "chav" from somewhere and extended it or whether the word "charver" was in use first and then shortened to "chav". (I would suspect the latter, but I'm no linguist so I don't know whether contractions are more common than extensions when languages and words evolve.)
OK, I know, getting boring now, but I can't get me coat yet, I'm still wearing me Santa suit. (Just don't ask...)
'Chav' would seem to be a word derived from Roma, and 'CHAV' is one of those stupid acronyms that get made-up and tacked on after-the-fact...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav#Etymology
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chav
http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/oald7/wotm/wotm_archive/chav?cc=gb
My wife (who's a Geordie) recalls a mother of her friend referring to little kids as 'charvers' back in the late 1980s - it's not a new word, but the meaning has changed in recent years to refer to the no-good scuffers that we all know and love.
SC
Everyone calls em chavs now for some reason. The media seem to love the word. Problem is, round here they used to be townies. Anc scruffs. And mostly just wankers in hats. This "chav" thing annoys me.
Nobody knows where the chav came from but I've developed a theory. They're actually a fungus. A highly mobile and aggressive fungus, but a fungus nontheless. The first clue came from those puffer jackets they used to wear in the 90s though, apparently, evolution has made them less obvious now. Anyway, these puffer jacketed townies are the mobile adult stage, and usually one will travel to a new area, sit down and then explode overnight. The next morning all you'll be able to find are filter papers, manky looking socks and emtpy cans od cheap cider littering the area. These are the fungal spores, and new townywankers will grow out of them. Once an area is infested with these spores the fungus is almost impossible to eradicate, and even if it appears to have been driven out it's usually left behind enough spores to rise again, as if from nowhere.
Several species have been identified. The "classic", or Original Townie of the mid-90s, or Lycoperdum nylumpolis, wearing bright nylon tracksuits, puffer jackets and peaked caps with the middle pushed in so it sits right on top of the shaved head; the "Burbury breasted chav" or Lycoperdum pledipolis, and it's subspecies the Essex Burburry, Lycoperdum Pledovalis; and the Common Hooded, or "Hoodie", Lycoperdum fibrocolilpolis. There are probably many more species out there. The fungus is highly adaptive and evolves very rapidly.
The only known treatment is a swift whack on the "head" with a stick, which kills the fungus without releasing its spores. They can also be temporarily immobilised by liberal application of alcohol in solution with lemonade.
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This is a bit of a sore point with a few people!
I've been around a bit (ooh er) and have heard a load of names for those of the chav persuasion:
Schemies (Glasgow or Edinburgh)
Scallies (Liverpool)
Chav
Ned
On an unrelated side note i also heard that divvie was originally used to describe the inmates in a prison who were so stupid the only job they were given was to put the dividers in the files...
Biut not sure how true that is!
Does anyone else have any other words for chav?
I can definitely state that here in Newcastle area, we've been saying charver since at least the early nineties - chav was new to us much later. We always understood it to be a contraction of "chart raver" referring to the hordes of pilled up scallies that invaded the rave scene and spoiled it for everyone else.
I choose the smiley due to the obvious drug culture reference.
The first time I'd heard the term 'Chav' was in 1995 when I joined university. Two of my friends from Kent. The meaning was the same, and it was shortened from 'Chavver'. They used to talk about the 'Chavvers from Faversham'. No-one could say where the name came from, but I think it had been in common usage in kent for at least 5 years before it found it's way onto the internet.
I went to a school in Sidcup called Kemnal Technology College, formerly Kemnal Manor. There are a number of Romani gypsie camps nearby (specically in an area called the Crays) whose male kids were often sent to my school. I was there from '94 to '99 and have distinct memories as early as '94 of them calling each other (presumably affectionately) Chavi. Thus those of us who had no idea what they were saying (and were either brave or stupid) used to call them Chav's. I'm convinced this word entered popular culture from my school, or certainly the Sidcup area, but could be completely wrong.
I'm certainly glad to be out of that area now, from what I have heard it has gone terribly down hill since then!
...in the mid/late 80's we used to call them "Bedmies" as they hung round the dodgy shops in Bedminster, wearing burgandy trousers.
"Charva" was used by all sorts in Newcastle in the late-80's, including my then-girlfriends grandma, who wouldn't have known what a rave was (especially not a charty one).
I grew up in Gravesend, North Kent in the 59s/60s and the term chav, chavi, cushtie and cory were all in common usage. As said earlier cushtie means good. Cory was often used as 'cory cream' referring to ejaculatory emissions. Chav or chavi was a mate but could be used as a term of minor abuse.
We all picked up these phrases from circus and fair workers who came through regularly. As did lucky heather and clothes pegs sellers...
There was an irreverent comic strip out some years back which summed up the situation rather too well for some. If the link below doesn't work you can find it on Flikr - tags: gypsy cartoon comic strip
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53396935@N00/2076508210/
When I lived down Cheshire way, around the suburbs of the suburbs of Manchester, "Townies" was a term for the teenage children of the wealthy who would spend all of their time wearing ugly but expensive clothing and pointlessly hanging around the town lying about how much beer they had 'necked' (in reality, almost none, since they were almost universally to stupid to produce or procure fake ID).
We called the unrepentantly nasty and violent scum "Scallies", which is Manchester proper terminology, and doesn't necessarily involve a shell suit. There was some crossover between the two, Cheshire being such a hotbed of social climbing, and not always in the upward direction. I spent many a fond Friday evening kicking these fuckwads out of my pub and into the car park, there to be administered a suitable kicking before being summarily bundled into the handily parked black mariah that used to frequent our car park. Ah Cheshire, how I miss your random pointless violence and criminally negligent police force.
Later (mid 90s) I moved to Newcastle, and discovered the term "Charver", which almost always involves a shell suit, cap, Elizabeth Duke at Argos bling, poor social skills, and teenage pregnancy. There is a guide to charvers, similar to the above mentioned sites at : http://www.newcastlestuff.com/charver/index.html
I would argue that at the time, the two were distinct, but they seem to have merged into one large and unpleasant subculture. If that weren't the case, Jeremy Kyle would have no audience.
Cattle prods and Landrovers, it's the only way.
I'm a policeman officer. Born in Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup incidentally.
I can't support the 'Council House And Violent' etymology. I'd never heard that derivation prior to the word 'Chav' coming into popular use, nor has any colleague I've discussed it with.
And no, I can't let you off that speeding ticket.
I was born in "Royal Tunbridge Wells".. well actually like everyone else from the area Pembury. Unless you were born on some doorstep which is frightfully common.
I have heard some shocking examples of english from the Youf element of twells and local boroughs such as Maidstone (such a classy place) and north Kent.
I don't think it matters where you come from anymore, lower class plebs are lower class plebs. ironically the worst of them tend to be the ones that come from minted families.
AIUI, "Pikey" and "Roma" are quite distinct terms.
Roma are the "traditional" gypsies with the multiple gold earrings who go around on horses, live in painted wooden caravans put curses on people in Steven King novels.
Pikeys are the (originally) Irish "tinkers" with the multiple gold signet rings who go around in top-of-the-range Beemers, live in plastic caravans and claim benefits.
I rely mostly on the film "Snatch" for my description of the latter.
Hey, Brits practically *invented* inbreeding! "Normal for Norfolk" - they reckon that the invention of the bicycle saved most village communities from imploding incest-wise by finally providing a bit of genetic mixing. And as Steve Knightley (from the band "Show of Hands") says, the West Country is only one step removed from the backwoods of America.
And not to mention the chinless Harries and Harriets from the old aristo families...
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