Classless

[David Donnell]

This stanza from John Lennon's song "Working Class Hero" is where I
first heard the word "classless", as a 12 yr old in 1970:

[...] A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped with religion and sex and tv
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see [...]

Also, btw, the opposite of "classy" or "having class", in my book,
would be "unclassy".

However, the word "classy" itself has always struck me as being
somehow "unclassy"--as if there is perhaps an unintended irony when
people use it. (But I'll have to thenk about that.)

DD
Missourian @ NYC


>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
>Subject:      Re: Classless
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>One can assume, I assume, that the cited U wasn't Harvard, since "common"
>>there has an altogether different meaning.
>
>Sorry, brevity the soul of obscurity again. I was thinking of the
>U/non-U distinction as propounded in mid-century by Diana Mitford et
>al. -- U being upper class.
>
>I know the Boston area abounds in commons. Also in squares which
>aren't square. Near Tufts U, where I did grad school, there are Davis
>Square, Inman Square, Ball Square, and pretty much every other
>intersection of major streets is a Square too (Harvard Square and
>Brattle Square making a very nice sort of hourglass between them),
>and one thing they nearly all have in common is not being rectilinear
>quadrilaterals. The intersections that _are_ square are generally too
>insignficant to be Squares.
>
>Oops. Tangent. Sorry. How classless of me. (Wait... I just had class
>today, from 3 to 6 this afternoon.)
>
>James Harbeck.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org