stOr@ Drive

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:46 AM -0700 7/19/09, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 at the almost witchng hour of 11:03:26 Zulu minus 0700
>Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
>
>><snip> but a significant number of my neighbors were lower middle class (and
>>some working class).
>
>The distinction between "lower middle class" and "working class"
>quite escapes me.
>
Isn't working class below middle class, which in turn is subdivided
(at least sometimes) into upper middle, middle middle, and lower
middle?  Presumably, lower middle class is not only statically higher
than working class but more dynamically ambitious, and perhaps less
likely to be proud of the identity or affiliation than working class.
I was just listening to an old John Lennon song a few days ago, with
the repeated claim "A working class hero is something to be".  The
stance of the song is scornful of all sorts of bourgeois trappings.
Somehow, "A lower middle class hero is something to be" would be
unlikely even if it weren't ruled out on metrical grounds...

LH, thinking that "working class" as in the Lennon context is more
associated with British than U.S. use, where it's the poor (or
working poor) rather than working class that's sub-middle.  I'm sure
there are reams of sociological treatises about this...

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