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Snob is a pejorative term for a person who feels superior due to their social class, education level, or social status in general; [1] it is sometimes used especially when they pretend to belong to these classes. The word snobbery came into use for the first time in England during the 1820s.
Snobs can through time be found ingratiating themselves with a range of prominent groups — soldiers (Sparta, 400 BCE), bishops (Rome, 1500), poets (Weimar, 1815) — for the primary interests of snobs is a distinction, and as its definition changes, so, naturally and immediately, will the objects of the snob's admiration. [1]
Snobbery existed also in medieval feudal aristocratic Europe when the clothing, manners, language, and tastes of every class were strictly codified by customs or law. Geoffrey Chaucer, a poet moving in the court circles, noted the provincial French spoken by the Prioress among the Canterbury pilgrims:
And French she spoke full fair and fetisly
After the school of Stratford atte Bowe,
For French of Paris was to her unknowe.
William Rothwell notes "the simplistic contrast between the 'pure' French of Paris and her 'defective' French of Stratford atte Bowe that would invite disparagement". [2]
Snobbery surfaced more strongly as the structure of the society changed, and the bourgeoisie had the possibility to imitate aristocracy. [3] Snobbery appears when elements of culture are perceived as belonging to an aristocracy or elite, and some people (the snobs) feel that the mere adoption of the fashion and tastes of the elite or aristocracy is sufficient to include someone in the elites, upper classes or aristocracy. [4]
The term "snob" is often misused when describing a "gold-tap owner", [1] i.e. a person who insists on displaying (sometimes non-existent) wealth through conspicuous consumption of luxury goods such as clothes, jewelry, cars etc. Displaying awards or talents in a rude manner, boasting, is a form of snobbery. A popular example of a "snob victim" is the television character Hyacinth Bucket of the BBC comedy series Keeping Up Appearances .
William Hazlitt observed, in a culture where deference to class was accepted as a positive and unifying principle, [5] "Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity, and afraid of being overtaken by it," adding subversively, "It is a sign the two things are not very far apart." [6] The English novelist Bulwer-Lytton remarked in passing, "Ideas travel upwards, manners downwards." [7] It was not the deeply ingrained and fundamentally accepted idea of "one's betters" that has marked snobbery in traditional European and American culture, but "aping one's betters".
Snobbery is a defensive expression of social insecurity, flourishing most where an establishment has become less than secure in the exercise of its traditional prerogatives, and thus it was more an organizing principle for Thackeray's glimpses of British society in the threatening atmosphere of the 1840s than it was of Hazlitt, writing in the comparative social stability of the 1820s. [8]
Ghil'ad Zuckermann proposes the term snobbative to refer to a pretentious, highfalutin phrase used by a person in order to sound snobbish. The term derives from snob + -ative, modelled upon comparatives and superlatives. Thus, in its narrow sense, a snobbative is a pompous (phonetic) variant of a word. Consider the following hypercorrect pronunciations in Israeli Hebrew: [9] : 184
A non-hypercorrect example in Israeli Hebrew is filozófya, a snobbative of filosófya (פילוסופיה), which means "philosophy". [9] : 184 The snobbative filozófya (with z) was inspired by the pronunciation of the Israeli Hebrew word פילוסופיה by German Jewish professors of philosophy, whose speech was characterized by intervocalic voicing of the s as in their German mother tongue. [9] : 190
A euphemism is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes to downplay. Euphemisms may be used to mask profanity or refer to topics some consider taboo such as mental or physical disability, sexual intercourse, bodily excretions, pain, violence, illness, or death in a polite way.
Estonian is a Finnic language of the Uralic family. Estonian is the official language of Estonia. It is written in the Latin script and is the first language of the majority of the country's population; it is also an official language of the European Union. Estonian is spoken natively by about 1.1 million people: 922,000 people in Estonia and 160,000 elsewhere.
Yiddish is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew and to some extent Aramaic. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages. Yiddish has traditionally been written using the Hebrew alphabet.
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1847–1848 novel Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of British society, and the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, which was adapted for a 1975 film by Stanley Kubrick.
Vanity Fair is a novel by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray, which follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It was first published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848, carrying the subtitle Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society, which reflects both its satirisation of early 19th-century British society and the many illustrations drawn by Thackeray to accompany the text. It was published as a single volume in 1848 with the subtitle A Novel without a Hero, reflecting Thackeray's interest in deconstructing his era's conventions regarding literary heroism. It is sometimes considered the "principal founder" of the Victorian domestic novel.
The Luck of Barry Lyndon is a picaresque novel by English author William Makepeace Thackeray, first published as a serial in Fraser's Magazine in 1844, about a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy. Thackeray, who based the novel on the life and exploits of the Anglo-Irish rake and fortune-hunter Andrew Robinson Stoney, later reissued it under the title The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. The novel is narrated by Lyndon himself, who functions as a quintessentially unreliable narrator.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1848.
In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP) is a sociological term which is often used to describe white Protestant Americans of British descent, who are generally part of the white dominant culture or upper-class and historically often the Mainline Protestant elite. Historically or most consistently, WASPs are of British descent, though the definition of WASP varies in this respect. It was seen to be in exclusionary contrast to Catholics, Jews, Irish, immigrants, southern or eastern Europeans, and the non-White. WASPs have dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States. Critics have disparaged them as "The Establishment". Although the social influence of wealthy WASPs has declined since the 1960s, the group continues to play a central role in American finance, politics, and philanthropy.
In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is the nonstandard use of language that results from the overapplication of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a misunderstanding of such rules that the form or phrase they use is more "correct", standard, or otherwise preferable, often combined with a desire to appear formal or educated.
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi was a historian, ethnologist, Labor Zionist leader and the longest-serving President of Israel. He was first elected on 8 December 1952, assumed office on 16 December 1952, and continued to serve in the position until his death.
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum languages, or as the result of migration, with an intrusive language acting as either a superstratum or a substratum.
In linguistics, an internationalism or international word is a loanword that occurs in several languages with the same or at least similar meaning and etymology. These words exist in "several different languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from the ultimate source". Pronunciation and orthography are similar so that the word is understandable between the different languages.
A parvenu is a person who is a relative newcomer to a high-ranking socioeconomic class. The word is borrowed from the French language; it is the past participle of the verb parvenir.
In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. English examples include smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, as well as motel, from motor (motorist) and hotel.
The revival of the Hebrew language took place in Europe and the Levant region toward the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, through which the language's usage changed from purely the sacred language of Judaism to a spoken and written language used for daily life among the Jews in Palestine, and later Israel. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is often regarded as the "reviver of the Hebrew language" having been the first to raise the concept of reviving Hebrew and initiating a project known as the Ben-Yehuda Dictionary. The revitalization of Hebrew was then ultimately brought about by its usage in Jewish settlement in Ottoman Palestine that arrived in the waves of migration known as the First Aliyah and the Second Aliyah. In Mandatory Palestine, Modern Hebrew became one of three official languages and after the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, one of two official languages of Israel, along with Modern Arabic. In July 2018, a new law made Hebrew the sole official language of the State of Israel, while giving Arabic a "special status".
The Jockey Club de Paris is a traditional gentlemen's club and is regarded as the most prestigious of private clubs in Paris. It is best remembered as a gathering place of the elite of nineteenth-century French society. Today it is decidedly but not exclusively aristocratic. The club seat is at 2, rue Rabelais in Paris, near the Champs-Elysées and it hosts the International Federation of Racing Authorities.
Estonian vocabulary, i.e., the vocabulary of the Estonian language, was influenced by many other language groups.
Anglo-Norman, also known as Anglo-Norman French, was a dialect of Old Norman that was used in England and, to a lesser extent, other places in Great Britain and Ireland during the Anglo-Norman period.
The Oriental Club in London is a Private Members’ Club established in 1824. Charles Graves described it in 1963 as fine in quality as White's but with the space of infinitely larger clubs. It is now located in Stratford Place, near Oxford Street and Bond Street. Based in an elegant building, the Oriental Club is one of the best members’ clubs for those in their 20s.
Australian Jews, or Jewish Australians, are Jews who are Australian citizens or permanent residents of Australia. In the 2021 census there were 99,956 people who identified Judaism as their religious affiliation and 29,113 Australians who identified as Jewish by ancestry, an increase from 97,355 and 25,716, respectively, from the 2016 census. The actual number is almost certainly higher, because being a Jew is not just about being religious, but the census data is based on religious affiliation, so secular Jews often feel it would be inaccurate to answer with "Judaism". Also, since the question is optional, many practising Holocaust survivors and Haredi Jews are believed to prefer not to disclose their religion in the census. By comparison, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz estimated a Jewish-Australian population of 120,000–150,000, while other estimates based on the death rate in the community estimate the size of the community as 250,000, which would make them 1% of the population. Based on the census data, Jewish citizens make up about 0.4% of the Australian population. The Jewish community of Australia is composed mostly of Ashkenazi Jews, though there are Jews in Australia from many other traditions and levels of religious observance and participation in the Jewish community.
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