Measure your own Chav factor!

[pipme]

Here Pip what's all this Chav business, are we getting too old do you think?

I think you are right, the Gypsies used that expression yonks ago, I thought I had heard it before.

Well, google seems to think it means Cheltenham average, but I thought it meant Chatham Average. I mean one is Chev for short, the other is Chav. I don't know though, I don't know if it's in the OED yet.

No need to wait for the OED ....

A writer in the Independent thought it (Chav) derived from the name of the town of Chatham in Kent, where the term is best known and probably originated. 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.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-cha2.htm

Knew I had heard G's use the word 'Chavi'.
P

 

[AdamW]

No, it is almost certainly derived from "chavin". The Chavin people lived around 5000 years ago on the coast of Peru (Norte Chico), and were among South America's oldest civilisations.

See, it must be true.

 

[2scoops0406]

Here Pip what's all this Chav business, are we getting too old do you think?

I think you are right, the Gypsies used that expression yonks ago, I thought I had heard it before.

Well, google seems to think it means Cheltenham average, but I thought it meant Chatham Average. I mean one is Chev for short, the other is Chav. I don't know though, I don't know if it's in the OED yet.

No need to wait for the OED ....

A writer in the Independent thought it (Chav) derived from the name of the town of Chatham in Kent, where the term is best known and probably originated. 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.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-cha2.htm

Knew I had heard G's use the word 'Chavi'.
P

But to quote the article mentioned "Did chavi die out, only to be reinvented recently? That seems hardly likely from the written and anecdotal evidence; what we’re seeing is a term that has been in active but inconspicuous use for the last 150 years suddenly bursting out into wider popular use in a new sense through circumstances we don’t fully understand."

 

[2scoops0406]

No, it is almost certainly derived from "chavin". The Chavin people lived around 5000 years ago on the coast of Peru (Norte Chico), and were among South America's oldest civilisations.

See, it must be true.

 

[pipme]

Hasn't died out at all - among the Gypsies - Only people I had heard using the word and it was directed at 'children'! I guess it is falling into misuse ..
P