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ChavChav was recognized as the word-of-the-year 2004 by the British writer, Susie Dent (in Larpers and Schroomers: The Language Report, Oxford University Press, October 2004), and it has run through England like wildfire. There's a website: chavworld.co.uk. It was designed to put a positive spin lacking in another site, chavscum.co.uk. As explained by Oliver Bennett (in The Independent, January 28, 2004), a long list of abusive terms for the underclass might have arisen as a reaction to political correctness: "Or a vent for society's toxins, if the forum in chavscum.co.uk is anything to go by. This cult website was set up in December 2003 to chronicle the chavs, also known as neds, townies, kevs, charvers, steeks, spides, bazzas, yarcos, ratboys, kappa slappers, skangers, janners, stigs or scallies. "'Whatever you know them as', this site is about them, it reads. Britain's peasant underclass that is taking over our towns and cities!'" Chavworld.co.uk puts a happier face on things. On that site you can order copies of Chav! A User's guide to Britain's New Ruling Class by Mia Wallace and Clint Spanner (Transworld, 2004). It includes a glossary of chavspeak.
Chavs are usually taken to be male. Hence the need for the terms chavette for women and chavlings for children. Various etymologies have been proposed, including cognates in Romani and Hebrew, but the term's origin remains unsettled. From the perspective of English, Chav is interesting because it has created new compounds and flowered with suffixes: chavdom, chaviness, chavistocracy, chavmeister, chavporn, chavscum, chavspotter, chavster, chavtastic, chavviest, chavvy. Prefixes lag behind in this flurry of creativity, but there are (so far): prechav, postchav, Uberchav. Let's let a Chav have the last word (from a thread titled "Proud to be a Chav" at chavworld.co.uk): "People call me a Chav cos I luv Lacoste, Tommy [Hilfinger] and [Georgia] Armani....but I say stuff 'em. Chavs Rule." < Back to "Talking about Words"
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