snob

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 interest of snobs is distinction, and as its definition changes, so, naturally and immediately, will the objects of the snob's admiration.

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".Rothwell, "Stratford Atte Bowe re-visited" The Chaucer Review, 2001.

Snobbery surfaced more strongly as the structure of the society changed, and the bourgeoisie had the possibility to imitate aristocracy.{{Cite journal |last=Gartman |first=David |date=2002 |title=Bourdieu's Theory of Cultural Change: Explication, Application, Critique |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3108649 |journal=Sociological Theory |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=255–277 |doi=10.1111/1467-9558.00162 |jstor=3108649 |issn=0735-2751|url-access=subscription }} 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.{{Cite journal |last1=Friedman |first1=Sam |last2=Reeves |first2=Aaron |date=April 2020 |title=From Aristocratic to Ordinary: Shifting Modes of Elite Distinction |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0003122420912941 |journal=American Sociological Review |language=en |volume=85 |issue=2 |pages=323–350 |doi=10.1177/0003122420912941 |issn=0003-1224}}

The term "snob" is often misused when describing a "gold-tap owner", 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,The social historian G.M. Trevelyan referred to the deferential principle in British society as "beneficent snobbery", according to Ray 1955:24. "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."Hazlitt, Conversations with Northcote, quoted in Gordon N. Ray, "Thackeray's 'Book of Snobs'", Nineteenth-Century Fiction 10.1 (June 1955:22-33) p. 25; Ray examines the context of snobbery in contemporaneous society. The English novelist Bulwer-Lytton remarked in passing, "Ideas travel upwards, manners downwards."Bulwer-Lytton, England and the English, noted in Ray 1955:24. 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.See: Ray 1955:25f.

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:Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2003), Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew, [https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403917232 Palgrave Macmillan] {{ISBN|9781403917232}} / {{ISBN|9781403938695}}{{rp|184}}

1. khupím is a snobbative of khofím ({{Script/Hebrew|חופים}}), which means "beaches";
2. tsorfát is a snobbative of tsarfát ({{Script/Hebrew|צרפת}}), which refers to "France";
3. amán is a snobbative of omán ({{Script/Hebrew|אמן}}), which means "artist".{{rp|184}}

A non-hypercorrect example in Israeli Hebrew is filozófya, a snobbative of filosófya ({{Script/Hebrew|פילוסופיה}}), which means "philosophy".{{rp|184}} The snobbative filozófya (with z) was inspired by the pronunciation of the Israeli Hebrew word {{Script/Hebrew|פילוסופיה}} by German Jewish professors of philosophy, whose speech was characterized by intervocalic voicing of the s as in their German mother tongue.{{rp|190}}

File:The Snob (1921) - Ad 1.jpg, 1921 film with Wanda Hawley and Walter Hiers, on inside front cover of the January 30, 1921 Film Daily.]]

{{Columns-list|colwidth=18em|

• Arrogance
• Assertiveness
• Boasting, something which is higher in a hierarchical structure of any kind
• Confidence
• Chronological snobbery
• Classism
• Contempt
• Discrimination
• Egotism
• Elitism
• Emotional insecurity
• Entitlement
• Envy
• Four Yorkshiremen sketch
• Greed
• Inferiority complex
• Jealousy
• Narcissism
• Prejudice
• Prestige
• Pride
• Privilege
• Prima donna
• Queen bee
• Respectability
• Social climber
• Superiority
• Superiority complex
• Supremacy
• The Book of Snobs
• The Snob (1924 film)
• Vanity

}}

{{Reflist}}

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• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050514075848/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0206.epstein.html Joseph Epstein, "In a snob-free zone"]: "Is there a place where one is outside all snobbish concerns—neither wanting to get in anywhere, nor needing to keep anyone else out?"

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20010726082802/http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwordorigins/snob Ask Oxford – Ask the Experts]
• [http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?snob Merriam Webster On-line Dictionary]
• [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=snob On-line Etymology Dictionary]

{{Discrimination}}

{{Narcissism}}

{{Social class}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:1820s neologisms

Category:Class discrimination

Category:High society (social class)

Category:Identity politics

Category:Labeling theory

Category:Narcissism

Category:Class-related slurs

Category:Personality traits

Category:Social status

Category:Stereotypes of the upper class

Category:Terminology of the University of Cambridge