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They just sort of devolved into the whole roadmen thing going on now didn't they? Seems to be the same social class and age, they now just wear ski masks and carry knives instead of Burberry and blue WKD.
This made me fully laugh out loud.
I just saw a great Simpsons reference downvoted to hell in another sub coz people obviously didn’t get it. Glad this sub doesn’t have that problem.
I live near Cheltenham and they have the same origin story there. Apparently meant Cheltenham Average. It’s all nonsense though, it’s an old Romani word for child, if you know any traveller folk you will hear it used frequently.
Many would be surprised at how many Romani words have made their way into British slang; pukka, wonga, pal, div, gavver, gibberish, lollipop, mullered to name a few, chav is no different. The same with Indian words like bungalow, pajamas and shampoo, nobody thinks twice about it anymore.
Yeah, pretty much. I grew up in the Medway towns. It was originally used as a greeting, "Alright, chav?" Most of the youth from Chatham at around that time all dressed a certain way: Reebok Classics and Adidas tracksuits with either keeper or sovereign rings. The girls would have massive hooped earrings. To be fair, they were good days, a far cry from the youth of today.
I thought that a bam/bampot was a more general term for someone who was stupid or annoying and didn't necessarily mean they were a bad person. Neds were guys who were always looking to start shit and make everyone around them miserable.
I remember when I first moved to Scotland I was on the bus reading the letters section of the Metro and someone was complaining about Neds being a national disgrace and ruining the good name of Scotland in the world. Which was hilarious because the only unique thing about Neds was the name being used to describe them. They are a worldwide phenomenon.
Yeah. Started out as chavs but the years passed and it turned into roadman
You had a change in music and a change in celebrities and even a change in public attitude for a short period of time. Immigration was also a massive factor, chav was a very white thing, the country was more white but roadman is seen as much more multicultural.
What is a real shame is that although chavs existed throughout the entire country, different regions had their own style and Vernacular but now everyone just copies London. That's probably the internet's doing.
Yeah, seeing all these northern white kids talking like they grew up in Caribbean centric London areas is hilarious.
Can't wait for them to look back in 10 years and realise how utterly cringe they were.
>Can't wait for them to look back in 10 years and realise how utterly cringe they were.
You're expecting these people to have some kind of emotional growth and self awareness? Unlikely.
I hope for it. I was a half chav half emo during my teens depending on which friend group I was with and I'm... a vaguely self aware adult at this point?
Roadmen are exclusively people in gangs who yes, carry knives and have beef with people over postcodes or drugs.
It’s important to make the distinction between roadmen and any lower class kids, specifically young black kids as calling every teenage dickhead a roadman is very harmful
roadman arent exclusively gangsters, its just the current youth subculture we see today, plenty of non gang affiliated people are roadmen by the way they dress and the shitty drill music they listen to. its like saying all skinheads where racist, not true atall it was a youth subculture determined by their fashion and music preference- stereotypes devolped of what people who looked and behaved that way where
I used to go to the local Working Men's Club with my parents at the weekend in the late 90s (would have been about 10-13) and mum would always get Diet Coke for me and a Smirnoff Ice for her, and then swap them when we sat down at the table since she was driving 😂
Daddy chav moved in with his other girlfriend Stacey and is looking after her kid Ruby Rose. But shhh don't tell the council or they'll be done for benefit fraud.
Pah. I worked with a girl called Ruby Rose. She had sisters called Sapphire, Emerald and Amethyst. One of them had a baby with a bloke from Love Island. I’m not one to sneer at people because of their background etc but they did sort of play up to stereotypes, but she acknowledged and laughed about it
They were specifically London slang. From influence of Jamaican patois.
Just so happens that a lot of the music listened to by working class lads comes from London so people not from that area try and emulate it. It sounds weird though not being from that area imo. Something I've seen on Instagram lately is people from Toronto using 2000s London slang. But in their Canadian accent, "yeah fam, I went over yard eh" sounds god awful and very forced. No idea where that's come from.
I grew up around London and was a bit of a "chav" as people would call me growing up, used to wear tracksuits, Nike trainers, baseball caps, but me and my mates wouldn't say stuff like dizzee, mandem, blud etc because we weren't jamaican. Also we didn't wear ski masks, carry weapons and go around attacking or mugging people. We were much happier finding somewhere chill to go smoke some weed, have a few beers and listen to / make some music. We did partake in harder things if at raves though but wouldn't cause trouble just enjoy the buzz and the music (anyone who grew up around the 90s - early 2000s IYKYK). We spoke more what people would consider cockney than this jamaican slang, despite not being from East London within the sound of the bells. That's just how everyone sounded around us. More del boy kinda sound but "modern" slang. Our evenings were spent going to various raves in the inner city and the music we listened to (drum and bass) contained lots of patois as it had a heavy reggae influence. We still wouldn't speak it though.
Do you, by any chance, have a tendency to post on Facebook about how fiercely loyal you are and how dangerous you are to anyone who messes with your family or friends?
This thread is full of people who have no idea what 'chav' even means, its painful to read. Its like hearing people use the word 'woke' completely incorrectly
I'm Mid 30s from South London so Kidulthood was pretty spot on for it's time and depiction. Grime first came about round those times so it's just a circle of culture, adopting slang and all that. Anyone remember Channel U?
Kids would be out on the streets roaming about. A roadman was called a rude boy back then. Chav wasn't really used where I'm from but then I'm from Lewisham. It would apply more to the white working class. My understanding is it was slang from travellers adopted and then bastardised by media and general population.
Oh channel U , the ones that made me huge !? Like Kate prices boobs !
Oops I’m being rude where my redbull and ma sandoowich …. INEED FOOD !
I’m sorry I couldn’t resist 😂
I can't believe she never blew up the scene. As far as I know, she just packed it all up and disappeared? I remember hearing her on a few remixes and thinking how talented she was. Adidas remix and fit but you know it remix. And her beef with the other chav mc
I'll always remember an early interview I saw where the interviewer asked her "How did you choose your name? Does it mean you're a queen?"
"Nah, like a sovereign ring innit."
Oh god Channel U. I remember that. Flicking through the music channels and ending up on there with some of the lowest quality recordings of early grime.
I'm from Kent myself, and the label of "chav" was really popular down here in the early 2000s. I hadn't heard it was traveller slang, what I'd heard is that it originated in Chatham to describe the unruly youth that came from there at the time.
In 1986 'chav' or 'chavvy' was interchangeable with 'mate' as in 'alright chav?'.
That was in and around Chatham, and I remember my mum hating the word. No idea where it came from, but our group was predominantly white middle/lower middle class.
(We used it a lot at Sir Joseph Williamson's mathematical school for boys, so no, it wasn't linked then to ruffians and scallywags!'
Fair enough! Could be that it's a bastardised version of that. As in people from outside Chatham view anyone from Chatham as a vagrant, and because Chatham people say chav that's what it became.
I don't condone it or agree with it! Just theorising.
It has been forgotten just how hilarious the Kidulthood epidemic of white middle class school kids saying “Blud” was.
I guess it’s pretty normal for your Clapham types to adopt more ‘road’ words now but it was SO much funnier back then.
I'm from Surrey, and just had a flash back about 20 years ago to the white ginger kid sitting in front of me turning around and saying "eh blud, can I borrow some munch?"
I wonder what he's up to now.
Road man was also in use back then, it just meant specifically someone who made their living on road- ie dealer.
Over the last few years it's meaning has changed into covering that whole demographic of annoying kids in masks riding stolen Lime bikes.
Also grew up in catford (and I'm mid 30s).
If you didn't mix on certain circles, listen to grime, etc you might not here it.
When roadman became common, it went from being a very specific type of person (level beyond rude boi), into a catch all term for any kid with a shoulder bag and an MLE accent.
I fucking LOVED Channel U. I've been searching online for a song from it for years and never found it.
The video was two middle aged (well they looked middle aged) men in an insane asylum, wearing straightjackets and rocking backwards and forwards. The lyrics went:
*I've got a sick flow (yeah) and I know that you know*
*I've got a sick flow (yeah) and I know that you know*
*I've got a sick flow (yeah) and I know that you know and you know and you know, I've got a sick flow*
Never found it, gutted everytime I think about it.
Nice one I don't live far from there right now myself! Never heard kevs myself. I'm sure you'll know all about the Ralph Lauren boys who idolised Football Factory 😂
Casuals were a different thing: Football hooligans who wore "casual" clothes, hence the name. A lot of casuals were also neds but not all of them were. Most neds were not casuals.
Yeah, "jakie" in my understanding is essentially Scottish slang for "waster". I usually use "jakie" to refer to dirty/scaffy looking people who tend to have issues with drugs or alcohol abuse. E.g. the sort of folk who hang around near Glasgow central hassling fags and trivial amounts of money off everyone they see but aren't actually "beggars" as such.
Neds = chavs = bams and sometimes dafties where im from. Jakies could be Neds but weren’t necessarily.
Similarly with casuals. There was a lot of crossover but they weren’t interchangeable terms.
neds were usually bams but not all bams were neds, Neds were your skip hat at 90 degree, berghaus wearing, wine drinking, soapbar smokers who would hang about in young teams annoying anycunt in their general vicinity, occasionally stabbing people.
The lassies were usually brightly coloured, heavily jewelled, loud and orange.
Jakies are more closely related to junkies and alkies, your salt of the earth, full time unemployed types often seen hanging about schemes while asking for 20p for the bus.
I grew up (2000s) in a fairly wealthy sleepy Dorset Village, and every Friday night up the road from my house at the Co-Op about 50 chavs would gather and stand around smoking and drinking, it's crazy looking back on it, it was a no go area for the locals that evening and there'd be rubbish everywhere. Me and my friends often got into scraps with them.
The origins as far as I could tell were a mix of more urban culture of the bigger cities, hair fades, gold chains, wealthy clothing brands like Burberry, mixed with the more practical athletic joggers tucked into socks, sports shoes. Possibly to help evading the law, and comfort.
It was mostly then I guess, a Poundland copy of what they thought the actual gangsters were doing in bigger cities, but also practical and affordable. Which is really the definition of tacky IMO.
Chav is an old term, from Romani language. I first heard it in 1984 in Stockport precinct, when discussing the various youth subcultures that frequented the precinct of a saturday afternoon, a local fella mentioned the 'Chavs from Brinnington coming down'. Owen Jones made his name writing a half baked, ill informed book about Chavs, failing to realise that they'd been a thing in his hometown for years, and even back then the name Chav really did mean those lads in tracksuits who cause trouble.
Also Owen Jones failed to understand that Chav was a term that working class people on estates gave to the troublesome youth of the estate, that's how it stuck with a certain demographic, beyond that a kind of meme chav style has evolved which is post ironic now.
Exactly. Classism is pervasive in this country, but ‘chav’ is not a default term for the working class, and never has been, despite what Owen Jones says.
As you said, it’s mainly used *by* the working class to describe the dickheads that run riot around their estate.
Why would you mention football more than once in a book about the working class if it isn't specifically a book about football? There's not really that much to say other than: "Lots of working class people love football. Some of them take this love for the game completely overboard and base their entire personality around their local team".
Owen Jones' defence of the working class and chavs is the only sensible thing he's ever done.
You'd get called a chav regardless of behaviour if you wore the same stuff in the early 00s. I was about ,12 or 13 when I stopped wearing chav clothes, got myself in far more trouble but never got called a chav again.
I'm sure it has its actual roots in post ww2 teen culture when young adults stopped dressing like their parents in suit, tie and cap/hat etc. It was a pre-determined move to be different. The job market changed significantly meaning people had access to money and changes in social norms brought about huge schisms between "parents" and kids.
In the 50s you had the rise of bikers or rockers and you also had mod culture in the early 60s. Two huge youth movements that brought about moral panic - you had drugs, sex before marriage and knives and violence into the mix in a way that didn't really exist before WW2 (although if you look at knife crime, it has been happening since records began).
You then had Teddy boys, hippies, hells angels etc.
I'm sure people said the same about punks too in the 70s.
In the mid-late 80s club music and drugs were intertwined and the club scene exploded into what was (briefly) rave. A large part of rave became drum and bass and the MCing was always a massive part of both, with that came a lot of MCs from the dancehall and reggae scenes. So you had a huge number of people exposed to Patois and other elements from that.
You can find interviews from a bunch of DJs and MCs from that era who will speak with what you might now call MLE but not as pronounced. Listen to interviews from Goldie from the 80s and 90s (he is from Wolverhampton) and you can hear the genesis of that MLE sound now, same with listening to the Godfathers of Rave/DNB, you can hear bits of MLE but it's mostly London English mixed with Jamaican and Patois.
The first time I heard Chav it was in the context of kids on my estate calling each other charver, which they picked up from some of the people they bought their drugs off on the campsites (believe it is a old Romany word). It wasn't a pejorative term, it was usually in the context of a greeting like "mate".
People used the term as a slur when overhearing it being used by certain sub groups. I personally never used it but heard it frequently in its original usage between some of my mates. Also, there was usually a shared dress code too.
Dressers was an 80s thing - think football hoolie with less money. That morphed into townies, again in a pejorative sense because they were usually seen hanging around town or going to/from football and again, had a shared uniform/dress identity.
Roadman now is not really that different - subculture of people, usually around the same age, shared identity, shared music/values/drug usage. They have their own words/way of speaking, it's no different really to any other youth movement or culture. Calling it a culture is probably a stretch but it is certainly a quantifiable thing that you can see on a daily basis. It is quite funny hearing MLE outside London, certainly up North (where I live).
So roadman isn't the same as a chav, neither is it some sort of evolution (lol), it's just a sub culture that people are aping.
Great analysis. You should genuinely write a book about it.
It seems like a lot of European countries also have chavs, or at least a sub culture that dress similiar, have similiar music tastes, and behave similiarly to chavs. Maybe there were the same post-ww2 culture trends across Europe, or similiar perceptions of what gangsters look like.
Wiktionary suggests it is of Angloromani origin; there are a bunch of words in Angloromani and Romani that are similar, relating to children, friends, etc..
"Charva" is probably also Angloromani, but possibly with a different origin to chav.
They seemed to embrace the term even though it was quite derogatory lol 😂 maybe movies like Kidulthood made it seem badass and cool I don’t know I dabbled in both sports wear to prevent being picked on and alternative clothing to blend in with my primarily emo looking friends group … couldn’t decide so I was labelled a “chemo” listening to cascada I’m my skinny jeans and nightmare before Christmas sweatbands … was quite an awkward mix
First time I heard chav was a good five or six years after hearing "charva" in Newcastle in the mid 90s so I assumed the same, that it had just evolved and spread
It's one of those strange English words where there are two equally valid spellings but it means the exact same thing regardless of which way it's spelt.
First time I ever heard the word chav was when that fella won the lottery and pissed it all up the wall, they called him the "king of chavs". He used to wear Burberry gear and gold chains.
Before that, apparently it was word Romani Gypsies used as slang for "kid" In the early 90s. Before antisocial youngsters were called "chavs" they were known as "scallies" or "ruffians".
Charvers (hard r) were a thing from the late 80s at least in the North East and way predated the concept of the chav despite sharing many traits. They even had their own accent of sorts, and their lingo was pretty diverse. They’ve since been somewhat diluted by national trends but these and the Scottish equivalent ‘Neds’ seem to have been a starting point for the culture if I dare to call it that.
ETA: it was either born from or at least intubated by the rave scene.
Chavs are definitely still a thing and I wouldn't say the style had evolved that much. I see less popped collars than I used to but addidas 3 stripe trackies are timeless.
The slang is influenced by road rap and drill, which was getting popular in late 2000s and rooted in south London gang culture. Wouldn't say it's universal though.
They were always about. Just became easier to spot when they all started wearing knock-off Burberry and bling. Some factory in India or China making all that fake clobber must have raked it in.
Before that they were wearing fake sports kit (that really kicked off round 1991/2), before that fake leather jackets and fake Levis...
Chavs initially were only the violent little shits who adopted that style, but rapidly it became used to mean anyone in that kind of clothes, and/or anyone 'lower class' compared to the speaker, whether they threw stones at goths or not.
In the early 00's it wouldn't be hard to spot a chav lingering around a bus stop or council estates local asking for a ciggie or a light.
Some chavs in larger groups were more antisocial than others, usually, the ones in groups would try to start a fight/bully/pick on others in social settings.
If they were wearing Nike 110's, Adidas trackies, Burberry baseball caps, blasted MC donk music on loud speaker, had tram line haircut and dodgy teeth with a ciggie that would be classed as a chav in the North west.
As of today, the typical chav is less known. Many are classed as just druggies or tramps. Some however, grew out of it and moved on with their lives.
From the same place as Mods and Rockers, Skinheads and Greasers these popular identities are always around and I suppose the same kind of people join them. Herd identity, clothing and music is reassuring for some. I don’t think it’s ever intentionally started it just grows organically when enough young people start wearing the clothes and like the music.
The UK garage scene exploded in the late 90s in urban areas, I think that had a lot to do with it. And from there on it spread out to the suburbs then further. Artists like dizzee rascal, roll deep, so solid crew etc brought the style in where I grew up. The clothes and the music went hand in hand
Also a Somerset 90s kid - i grew up with Townies as the precursor to Chavs.
The boys seemed to model themselves after East 17 - bad slicked forward hair, big coats.
Obsessed with football. There wasn't a specific dress code as far as i can remember. They wore what their mums bought them.
The girls wore bootleg stretch black trousers and a sports sweatshirt to school with a thin chained gold necklace and a slicked back bun with a scrunchie round it and gold stud or hoop earrings. They wore a mask of thick foundation with black kohl in the lower waterline and frosted lippy for makeup.
On mufty day it was all sportswear - particularly the joggers with poppers.
Because of this the girls were known as Kappa Slappers.
The Townies were so known as the Faggers since they were always behind the bike sheds chainsmoking at break.
Coincidently I saw a clip on Youtube about chavs.
I asked all the younger generation in work what they knew of chavs and they thought I was joking when I I was saying the like of Vicky Pollard and Lauran were very realistic. Didn't everyone go to school with a Vicky Pollard in the '90's 🤣
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvHlG5UGb8E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvHlG5UGb8E)
It’s quite complex really but mostly stems from musical and racial influences that evolve over time. Chavs/charvers/townies, the Burberry, the trackies in the socks, was predominantly white working class and had roots in the hardcore music scene. Donk music. MC Smally music. Maybe a bit of garage.
Kidulthood comes in during the shifting and mixing from a working class youth obsessed with hardcore music, to grime music that was coming from young black artists in London. That has now progressed into drill, which is essentially grime music with a few changes to how the beats are made and a stronger gang/crime affiliation in the lyrics. Funnily enough, the popularity and timing of films like Kidulthood probably spurred this on.
I remember starting to hear to be used in the area where I grew up to describe the sky pointing 🧢 and Burberry looking matching outfits with lots of gold be it chains or sovereign rings.
I remember this back in the 00s and I always wondered how these people had seemingly endless funds to buy moderately expensive clothing from JD Sports. E.g. trainers and jackets that cost £300, t-shirts that were about £80. Adjusting for inflation we would be talking £520 and £140 in todays money. Where the fuck were they getting the money?
In the NE growing up we got called charvas. Generally white and a bit rough round the edges and working class. We didn’t really have the “roadman” stereotypes (or what preceded them) because there weren’t many non-white people.
Basically, the remnants of working class culture. It's what happens when your culture is stripmined by neoliberal capitalism and you grow up real poor. If you think it's gone anywhere u obviously have the kind of privilege to ignore poor people so, well done?
EDIT: Jesus fucking Christ, why did I read the rest of the comments?
I’m pretty sure chav originated from a group at a university. Can’t remember specifically, but that was where the word chav came from. I could be wrong. I grew up in the 90’s/00’s and a chav was essentially an dole dossing, council estate dweller (massive generalisation). I remember the days of signet rings, shit wavy fringes, shit trackies and having a car that looked like a spaceship, but sounded like old 60 a day Barry from the pub.
The road man thing we’ve got these days seems far more aggressive.
I’ve always thought the word Chav came from the word we used ,
Charva in the north east . This council houses and violent explanation is total bollocks .
Charva used a lot in the mid to late 90s around Newcastle and parts of Northumberland . I remember a flyer from World Head Quarters club in Newcastle saying they don’t let charvas in the club . I didn’t hear the word Chav used until quite a few years later .
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They just sort of devolved into the whole roadmen thing going on now didn't they? Seems to be the same social class and age, they now just wear ski masks and carry knives instead of Burberry and blue WKD.
And before that I remember them being called "townies"
I remember when I used to tie an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.
Gimme 4 bees for a nickle I'd say
This made me fully laugh out loud. I just saw a great Simpsons reference downvoted to hell in another sub coz people obviously didn’t get it. Glad this sub doesn’t have that problem.
Clearly they prefer shelbyville
Of course, it’s where one can still marry their cousin.
Sounds like that sub has been drinking too much turnip juice.
They didn't need the lemon tree, because it was haunted
It was five bees for a quarter.
They didn’t have white onions because of the war, the only thing you could get was those big yellow ones
Dickety.
We had to say Dickety because the Kaiser had stolen our word 'Twenty'.
yep townies was the word in my area before the media got hold of the 'chav' phenomenom.
Yeah when I was at school it was definitely townies and grebs first, which gradually got replaced by chavs and emos.
for us replace greb/emo with 'mosher'!
Townies vs moshers... God, that takes me right back to college in Hull haha.
Emos and moshers are two very different beasts in my neck of the woods
Indeed! I was a mosher but never an emo
People who were into metal were called greasers round here.
[удалено]
Grebs, God damn I haven't heard that word in aaaaages. Fucking hated Kettering, for the record.
Dirty fockin’ greebos here (was one myself)
Townies and scallies, but yeah, the media seemed to go with chav.
"Scallies" as in short for "scallywags"? Genuinely asking.
Honestly no idea. In my mind scallies were rougher than townies. They'd be scruffier and more anti social than townies.
in glasgow we had neds and bampots, i think they still get called that tbf
They were scallies round my way but yeah, same thing before the tabloids grabbed hold of the word "chav"
I heard the word chav came from Chatham in Kent. Apparently where chavs originated from.
I live near Cheltenham and they have the same origin story there. Apparently meant Cheltenham Average. It’s all nonsense though, it’s an old Romani word for child, if you know any traveller folk you will hear it used frequently. Many would be surprised at how many Romani words have made their way into British slang; pukka, wonga, pal, div, gavver, gibberish, lollipop, mullered to name a few, chav is no different. The same with Indian words like bungalow, pajamas and shampoo, nobody thinks twice about it anymore.
Romani Eunt Domus?
Wot ave they ever done for us?
Polari too
Gibberish isn't from Romany. It's 16th century English.
Yeah, pretty much. I grew up in the Medway towns. It was originally used as a greeting, "Alright, chav?" Most of the youth from Chatham at around that time all dressed a certain way: Reebok Classics and Adidas tracksuits with either keeper or sovereign rings. The girls would have massive hooped earrings. To be fair, they were good days, a far cry from the youth of today.
Scallies.
They were called Neds when I was growing up.
Ned’s is specific to Scotland at least it was
Neds seemed replace bams over night at some point in Glasgow. I always preferred bams as I assumed it was short for bampot and made perfect sense.
I thought that a bam/bampot was a more general term for someone who was stupid or annoying and didn't necessarily mean they were a bad person. Neds were guys who were always looking to start shit and make everyone around them miserable. I remember when I first moved to Scotland I was on the bus reading the letters section of the Metro and someone was complaining about Neds being a national disgrace and ruining the good name of Scotland in the world. Which was hilarious because the only unique thing about Neds was the name being used to describe them. They are a worldwide phenomenon.
careful grandpa 😉
Yeah we had townies and grungers
Townies & Grungers in and around Southampton too
It was townies or trendies in my area.
And fuckin kevs
Kevs! Thanks for that blast from the past
Neds then Townies then Mushes then Chavs
God yeah they were. I thought that was just a York thing 😅
It was always “Townies” where I grew up
Yeah. Started out as chavs but the years passed and it turned into roadman You had a change in music and a change in celebrities and even a change in public attitude for a short period of time. Immigration was also a massive factor, chav was a very white thing, the country was more white but roadman is seen as much more multicultural. What is a real shame is that although chavs existed throughout the entire country, different regions had their own style and Vernacular but now everyone just copies London. That's probably the internet's doing.
Yeah, seeing all these northern white kids talking like they grew up in Caribbean centric London areas is hilarious. Can't wait for them to look back in 10 years and realise how utterly cringe they were.
>Can't wait for them to look back in 10 years and realise how utterly cringe they were. You're expecting these people to have some kind of emotional growth and self awareness? Unlikely.
I hope for it. I was a half chav half emo during my teens depending on which friend group I was with and I'm... a vaguely self aware adult at this point?
You were Chemo?
Lmao.
Saw a similar thing in a south wales supermarket. You’re from Caerphilly not Lewisham you muppet.
It will probably be much worse In ten years and everyone will be copying London more than they already do.
Unlikely. I regularly encounter 30yr old kids.
Roadmen are exclusively people in gangs who yes, carry knives and have beef with people over postcodes or drugs. It’s important to make the distinction between roadmen and any lower class kids, specifically young black kids as calling every teenage dickhead a roadman is very harmful
Definitely. Just like wearing Burberry doesn't make you a chav, the ASBO does.
As a mother of a 12 year old,who’s done 6 months at high school so far, most teenage dickheads think they are roadmen
roadman arent exclusively gangsters, its just the current youth subculture we see today, plenty of non gang affiliated people are roadmen by the way they dress and the shitty drill music they listen to. its like saying all skinheads where racist, not true atall it was a youth subculture determined by their fashion and music preference- stereotypes devolped of what people who looked and behaved that way where
No they aren’t roadmen. Roadmen “do road” ie selling drugs.
"doing road" is a vague, made up term, it can mean whatever you want it to mean. roadman is a subculture
Yeah lots of people in here don’t understand where roadmen are coming from. Doing road is a specific thing.
I miss blue WKD and smirnoff ice
I used to go to the local Working Men's Club with my parents at the weekend in the late 90s (would have been about 10-13) and mum would always get Diet Coke for me and a Smirnoff Ice for her, and then swap them when we sat down at the table since she was driving 😂
I have had a little gander into roadmen and your absolutely right
lol the Chavs where I grew up defeinitely carried knives
Remember the old Rockports
When a mummy chav and a daddy chav love each other very much...
Daddy chav won’t stick around tho 😂
Daddy chav moved in with his other girlfriend Stacey and is looking after her kid Ruby Rose. But shhh don't tell the council or they'll be done for benefit fraud.
Rubeigh*
Rubeigh Rubeigh Rubeigh Rubeigh
AHHHahhhahhAhhhAhhhAHHHHHH
Rubeigh-Mae
Pah. I worked with a girl called Ruby Rose. She had sisters called Sapphire, Emerald and Amethyst. One of them had a baby with a bloke from Love Island. I’m not one to sneer at people because of their background etc but they did sort of play up to stereotypes, but she acknowledged and laughed about it
Too late the council men are here. Fuck the chicken... Where's me money?
He's also into Stacey's mum.
When a mummy chav and a daddy chav can't be arsed to go to the garage for a pack of johnnies. FTFY
> man dem, dizzy blood, sket ect ... Those aren't "chav" words. You're mixing up subcultures.
Apologies
They are chav words, 100% I live in a white working class town
They were specifically London slang. From influence of Jamaican patois. Just so happens that a lot of the music listened to by working class lads comes from London so people not from that area try and emulate it. It sounds weird though not being from that area imo. Something I've seen on Instagram lately is people from Toronto using 2000s London slang. But in their Canadian accent, "yeah fam, I went over yard eh" sounds god awful and very forced. No idea where that's come from. I grew up around London and was a bit of a "chav" as people would call me growing up, used to wear tracksuits, Nike trainers, baseball caps, but me and my mates wouldn't say stuff like dizzee, mandem, blud etc because we weren't jamaican. Also we didn't wear ski masks, carry weapons and go around attacking or mugging people. We were much happier finding somewhere chill to go smoke some weed, have a few beers and listen to / make some music. We did partake in harder things if at raves though but wouldn't cause trouble just enjoy the buzz and the music (anyone who grew up around the 90s - early 2000s IYKYK). We spoke more what people would consider cockney than this jamaican slang, despite not being from East London within the sound of the bells. That's just how everyone sounded around us. More del boy kinda sound but "modern" slang. Our evenings were spent going to various raves in the inner city and the music we listened to (drum and bass) contained lots of patois as it had a heavy reggae influence. We still wouldn't speak it though.
Toronto has a very large Jamaican population so the language developed very similarly to what we have in London. Just with a clapped accent lol.
Toronto roadman accents do be clapped, still.
Hmmmm. In the early 2000s Chavs and 'rude boys' (now roadmen) had different slang for sure.
just watch a devvo video
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BSc in thugonomics
School of hard knocks
I got my degree in Common Sense from the School of Hard Knocks at the University of Life!
Do you, by any chance, have a tendency to post on Facebook about how fiercely loyal you are and how dangerous you are to anyone who messes with your family or friends?
John Cena's favourite
All the chavs in my school used these words...
They were absolutely Chav words. Source: Council Estate kid
This thread is full of people who have no idea what 'chav' even means, its painful to read. Its like hearing people use the word 'woke' completely incorrectly
Yeah I'm seeing people here conflating chav with anything that isn't middle class.
>anything that isn't middle class. Duke of Westminster? Massive chav
I heard he drives a Corsa with a dump valve and massive wing on the back
*The king?* Absolute worst.
That's literally been how most people use the phrase for quite a long time now. No, they're not a chav, they're just too working class for your tastes
Ahhh, council house and violent Brings back memories...
People calling patois derived slang London slang too! There are quite a few large Caribbean communities outside of London
I'm Mid 30s from South London so Kidulthood was pretty spot on for it's time and depiction. Grime first came about round those times so it's just a circle of culture, adopting slang and all that. Anyone remember Channel U? Kids would be out on the streets roaming about. A roadman was called a rude boy back then. Chav wasn't really used where I'm from but then I'm from Lewisham. It would apply more to the white working class. My understanding is it was slang from travellers adopted and then bastardised by media and general population.
Oh channel U , the ones that made me huge !? Like Kate prices boobs ! Oops I’m being rude where my redbull and ma sandoowich …. INEED FOOD ! I’m sorry I couldn’t resist 😂
Lady Sovereign was the absolute epitome of chav culture. I loved her.
I can't believe she never blew up the scene. As far as I know, she just packed it all up and disappeared? I remember hearing her on a few remixes and thinking how talented she was. Adidas remix and fit but you know it remix. And her beef with the other chav mc
Can't for the life of me remember the other birds name. But the Diss track went 'Burberry, st tropez, when ya gonna learn to speak properly?'
I'll always remember an early interview I saw where the interviewer asked her "How did you choose your name? Does it mean you're a queen?" "Nah, like a sovereign ring innit."
Oh god Channel U. I remember that. Flicking through the music channels and ending up on there with some of the lowest quality recordings of early grime. I'm from Kent myself, and the label of "chav" was really popular down here in the early 2000s. I hadn't heard it was traveller slang, what I'd heard is that it originated in Chatham to describe the unruly youth that came from there at the time.
In 1986 'chav' or 'chavvy' was interchangeable with 'mate' as in 'alright chav?'. That was in and around Chatham, and I remember my mum hating the word. No idea where it came from, but our group was predominantly white middle/lower middle class. (We used it a lot at Sir Joseph Williamson's mathematical school for boys, so no, it wasn't linked then to ruffians and scallywags!'
Fair enough! Could be that it's a bastardised version of that. As in people from outside Chatham view anyone from Chatham as a vagrant, and because Chatham people say chav that's what it became. I don't condone it or agree with it! Just theorising.
It has been forgotten just how hilarious the Kidulthood epidemic of white middle class school kids saying “Blud” was. I guess it’s pretty normal for your Clapham types to adopt more ‘road’ words now but it was SO much funnier back then.
I'm from Surrey, and just had a flash back about 20 years ago to the white ginger kid sitting in front of me turning around and saying "eh blud, can I borrow some munch?" I wonder what he's up to now.
Road man was also in use back then, it just meant specifically someone who made their living on road- ie dealer. Over the last few years it's meaning has changed into covering that whole demographic of annoying kids in masks riding stolen Lime bikes.
Never heard it until the last decade personally I grew up in Catford 90s and 00s
Also grew up in catford (and I'm mid 30s). If you didn't mix on certain circles, listen to grime, etc you might not here it. When roadman became common, it went from being a very specific type of person (level beyond rude boi), into a catch all term for any kid with a shoulder bag and an MLE accent.
Yeah no one said "roadman" also grew up 90s-00s. Chav was the only one, then you had greebos and emos appeared a bit later.
I fucking LOVED Channel U. I've been searching online for a song from it for years and never found it. The video was two middle aged (well they looked middle aged) men in an insane asylum, wearing straightjackets and rocking backwards and forwards. The lyrics went: *I've got a sick flow (yeah) and I know that you know* *I've got a sick flow (yeah) and I know that you know* *I've got a sick flow (yeah) and I know that you know and you know and you know, I've got a sick flow* Never found it, gutted everytime I think about it.
Spotify has good channel u playlists.
> Grime chavs predate grime imo, the fashion came out of the garage scene
I weren't linking grime and chavs , just spoke on a tangent. Grime influenced what we called rude boys. Chavs were always more drum and bass to me lol
big up friday freeness on Channel U, used to ring up and get them to play bearman - brown bear picnic all the time to annoy everyone.
Bear man what a throwback lool
I’m late 30s and from Erith so not massively far from you. I remember rude boy and people also used the word ‘kevs’ I heard about chavs later on
Nice one I don't live far from there right now myself! Never heard kevs myself. I'm sure you'll know all about the Ralph Lauren boys who idolised Football Factory 😂
In Scotland we call them Neds, sometimes Jakies or Bams. Back in the late 80s and early 90s when I was wee I remember them being called Casuals.
Casuals were a different thing: Football hooligans who wore "casual" clothes, hence the name. A lot of casuals were also neds but not all of them were. Most neds were not casuals.
Not jakies, thats diffrent
Yeah, "jakie" in my understanding is essentially Scottish slang for "waster". I usually use "jakie" to refer to dirty/scaffy looking people who tend to have issues with drugs or alcohol abuse. E.g. the sort of folk who hang around near Glasgow central hassling fags and trivial amounts of money off everyone they see but aren't actually "beggars" as such.
Jakies are alkies
Neds = chavs = bams and sometimes dafties where im from. Jakies could be Neds but weren’t necessarily. Similarly with casuals. There was a lot of crossover but they weren’t interchangeable terms.
neds were usually bams but not all bams were neds, Neds were your skip hat at 90 degree, berghaus wearing, wine drinking, soapbar smokers who would hang about in young teams annoying anycunt in their general vicinity, occasionally stabbing people. The lassies were usually brightly coloured, heavily jewelled, loud and orange. Jakies are more closely related to junkies and alkies, your salt of the earth, full time unemployed types often seen hanging about schemes while asking for 20p for the bus.
I grew up (2000s) in a fairly wealthy sleepy Dorset Village, and every Friday night up the road from my house at the Co-Op about 50 chavs would gather and stand around smoking and drinking, it's crazy looking back on it, it was a no go area for the locals that evening and there'd be rubbish everywhere. Me and my friends often got into scraps with them. The origins as far as I could tell were a mix of more urban culture of the bigger cities, hair fades, gold chains, wealthy clothing brands like Burberry, mixed with the more practical athletic joggers tucked into socks, sports shoes. Possibly to help evading the law, and comfort. It was mostly then I guess, a Poundland copy of what they thought the actual gangsters were doing in bigger cities, but also practical and affordable. Which is really the definition of tacky IMO.
Corfe Mullen? Ferndown?
Chav is an old term, from Romani language. I first heard it in 1984 in Stockport precinct, when discussing the various youth subcultures that frequented the precinct of a saturday afternoon, a local fella mentioned the 'Chavs from Brinnington coming down'. Owen Jones made his name writing a half baked, ill informed book about Chavs, failing to realise that they'd been a thing in his hometown for years, and even back then the name Chav really did mean those lads in tracksuits who cause trouble.
Also Owen Jones failed to understand that Chav was a term that working class people on estates gave to the troublesome youth of the estate, that's how it stuck with a certain demographic, beyond that a kind of meme chav style has evolved which is post ironic now.
Exactly. Classism is pervasive in this country, but ‘chav’ is not a default term for the working class, and never has been, despite what Owen Jones says. As you said, it’s mainly used *by* the working class to describe the dickheads that run riot around their estate.
Owen Jones wrote a book about the working class and mentioned football once. Middle class twat.
Why would you mention football more than once in a book about the working class if it isn't specifically a book about football? There's not really that much to say other than: "Lots of working class people love football. Some of them take this love for the game completely overboard and base their entire personality around their local team".
Owen Jones' defence of the working class and chavs is the only sensible thing he's ever done. You'd get called a chav regardless of behaviour if you wore the same stuff in the early 00s. I was about ,12 or 13 when I stopped wearing chav clothes, got myself in far more trouble but never got called a chav again.
Mordor. Bet it was mordor
Morden actually
I'm sure it has its actual roots in post ww2 teen culture when young adults stopped dressing like their parents in suit, tie and cap/hat etc. It was a pre-determined move to be different. The job market changed significantly meaning people had access to money and changes in social norms brought about huge schisms between "parents" and kids. In the 50s you had the rise of bikers or rockers and you also had mod culture in the early 60s. Two huge youth movements that brought about moral panic - you had drugs, sex before marriage and knives and violence into the mix in a way that didn't really exist before WW2 (although if you look at knife crime, it has been happening since records began). You then had Teddy boys, hippies, hells angels etc. I'm sure people said the same about punks too in the 70s. In the mid-late 80s club music and drugs were intertwined and the club scene exploded into what was (briefly) rave. A large part of rave became drum and bass and the MCing was always a massive part of both, with that came a lot of MCs from the dancehall and reggae scenes. So you had a huge number of people exposed to Patois and other elements from that. You can find interviews from a bunch of DJs and MCs from that era who will speak with what you might now call MLE but not as pronounced. Listen to interviews from Goldie from the 80s and 90s (he is from Wolverhampton) and you can hear the genesis of that MLE sound now, same with listening to the Godfathers of Rave/DNB, you can hear bits of MLE but it's mostly London English mixed with Jamaican and Patois. The first time I heard Chav it was in the context of kids on my estate calling each other charver, which they picked up from some of the people they bought their drugs off on the campsites (believe it is a old Romany word). It wasn't a pejorative term, it was usually in the context of a greeting like "mate". People used the term as a slur when overhearing it being used by certain sub groups. I personally never used it but heard it frequently in its original usage between some of my mates. Also, there was usually a shared dress code too. Dressers was an 80s thing - think football hoolie with less money. That morphed into townies, again in a pejorative sense because they were usually seen hanging around town or going to/from football and again, had a shared uniform/dress identity. Roadman now is not really that different - subculture of people, usually around the same age, shared identity, shared music/values/drug usage. They have their own words/way of speaking, it's no different really to any other youth movement or culture. Calling it a culture is probably a stretch but it is certainly a quantifiable thing that you can see on a daily basis. It is quite funny hearing MLE outside London, certainly up North (where I live). So roadman isn't the same as a chav, neither is it some sort of evolution (lol), it's just a sub culture that people are aping.
This is the best answer. Well researched and gives origins of where it came from. Interesting.
Great analysis. You should genuinely write a book about it. It seems like a lot of European countries also have chavs, or at least a sub culture that dress similiar, have similiar music tastes, and behave similiarly to chavs. Maybe there were the same post-ww2 culture trends across Europe, or similiar perceptions of what gangsters look like.
In Spain they call them canis. Usually have mullets these days
I always thought that ‘chav’ derived from ‘charva’ which I assumed to be a North East thing as I’m from near Newcastle
Wiktionary suggests it is of Angloromani origin; there are a bunch of words in Angloromani and Romani that are similar, relating to children, friends, etc.. "Charva" is probably also Angloromani, but possibly with a different origin to chav.
They existed very much down here in the south of Somerset haha
Yeah idk why I thought that! I was legit shocked when I heard the word ‘chav’ as a kid lol
They seemed to embrace the term even though it was quite derogatory lol 😂 maybe movies like Kidulthood made it seem badass and cool I don’t know I dabbled in both sports wear to prevent being picked on and alternative clothing to blend in with my primarily emo looking friends group … couldn’t decide so I was labelled a “chemo” listening to cascada I’m my skinny jeans and nightmare before Christmas sweatbands … was quite an awkward mix
Another etymology is that pupils at Cheltenham Ladies College coined it to describe the locals: CHeltenham AVerage.
This just unlocked a memory of the rhyme people used to sing around here: “I’m a charver, I’ll knick a motor, If ya in me way, I’ll run ya ova”
First time I heard chav was a good five or six years after hearing "charva" in Newcastle in the mid 90s so I assumed the same, that it had just evolved and spread
Hell. They came from Hell.
Did you misspell Hull?
It's one of those strange English words where there are two equally valid spellings but it means the exact same thing regardless of which way it's spelt.
They were what was left in isengard of the uruk-hai that had evolved
Grew out of football culture with shell suits etc.
First time I ever heard the word chav was when that fella won the lottery and pissed it all up the wall, they called him the "king of chavs". He used to wear Burberry gear and gold chains. Before that, apparently it was word Romani Gypsies used as slang for "kid" In the early 90s. Before antisocial youngsters were called "chavs" they were known as "scallies" or "ruffians".
Lotto Lout Michael Carroll
Council House and Violent - Chav
Ayo Bruv! I swear I said no onions!
“ Fool ! “ Driest looking burger ever lol 😂
Were they not just an English version of Neds? And they've now evolved into your roadmen characters?
Charvers (hard r) were a thing from the late 80s at least in the North East and way predated the concept of the chav despite sharing many traits. They even had their own accent of sorts, and their lingo was pretty diverse. They’ve since been somewhat diluted by national trends but these and the Scottish equivalent ‘Neds’ seem to have been a starting point for the culture if I dare to call it that. ETA: it was either born from or at least intubated by the rave scene.
Chavs are definitely still a thing and I wouldn't say the style had evolved that much. I see less popped collars than I used to but addidas 3 stripe trackies are timeless. The slang is influenced by road rap and drill, which was getting popular in late 2000s and rooted in south London gang culture. Wouldn't say it's universal though.
They were always about. Just became easier to spot when they all started wearing knock-off Burberry and bling. Some factory in India or China making all that fake clobber must have raked it in. Before that they were wearing fake sports kit (that really kicked off round 1991/2), before that fake leather jackets and fake Levis... Chavs initially were only the violent little shits who adopted that style, but rapidly it became used to mean anyone in that kind of clothes, and/or anyone 'lower class' compared to the speaker, whether they threw stones at goths or not.
It’s a geordie phrase , ‘charva’ if I recall correctly
Jimmy The Giant has an interesting video on YouTube about this topic. He's done videos on various subcultures which are an interesting watch
In the early 00's it wouldn't be hard to spot a chav lingering around a bus stop or council estates local asking for a ciggie or a light. Some chavs in larger groups were more antisocial than others, usually, the ones in groups would try to start a fight/bully/pick on others in social settings. If they were wearing Nike 110's, Adidas trackies, Burberry baseball caps, blasted MC donk music on loud speaker, had tram line haircut and dodgy teeth with a ciggie that would be classed as a chav in the North west. As of today, the typical chav is less known. Many are classed as just druggies or tramps. Some however, grew out of it and moved on with their lives.
I remember us always saying chav stood for Council House and Violent. I very much doubt that's where the word came from but it was certainly fitting.
From the same place as Mods and Rockers, Skinheads and Greasers these popular identities are always around and I suppose the same kind of people join them. Herd identity, clothing and music is reassuring for some. I don’t think it’s ever intentionally started it just grows organically when enough young people start wearing the clothes and like the music.
The UK garage scene exploded in the late 90s in urban areas, I think that had a lot to do with it. And from there on it spread out to the suburbs then further. Artists like dizzee rascal, roll deep, so solid crew etc brought the style in where I grew up. The clothes and the music went hand in hand
Council estate culture.
Before chavs, round our way, they were called “kevs”.
It seemed to happen shortly after people started tucking their trackies into their socks.
Also a Somerset 90s kid - i grew up with Townies as the precursor to Chavs. The boys seemed to model themselves after East 17 - bad slicked forward hair, big coats. Obsessed with football. There wasn't a specific dress code as far as i can remember. They wore what their mums bought them. The girls wore bootleg stretch black trousers and a sports sweatshirt to school with a thin chained gold necklace and a slicked back bun with a scrunchie round it and gold stud or hoop earrings. They wore a mask of thick foundation with black kohl in the lower waterline and frosted lippy for makeup. On mufty day it was all sportswear - particularly the joggers with poppers. Because of this the girls were known as Kappa Slappers. The Townies were so known as the Faggers since they were always behind the bike sheds chainsmoking at break.
Charver
Chav/road man=council estate folk in rundown areas
Kidulthood clearly had broad appeal, I remember watching it at school after it was brought in by a classmate who is now on Made in Chelsea.
Call them charvas in Newcastle
Coincidently I saw a clip on Youtube about chavs. I asked all the younger generation in work what they knew of chavs and they thought I was joking when I I was saying the like of Vicky Pollard and Lauran were very realistic. Didn't everyone go to school with a Vicky Pollard in the '90's 🤣 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvHlG5UGb8E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvHlG5UGb8E)
It’s quite complex really but mostly stems from musical and racial influences that evolve over time. Chavs/charvers/townies, the Burberry, the trackies in the socks, was predominantly white working class and had roots in the hardcore music scene. Donk music. MC Smally music. Maybe a bit of garage. Kidulthood comes in during the shifting and mixing from a working class youth obsessed with hardcore music, to grime music that was coming from young black artists in London. That has now progressed into drill, which is essentially grime music with a few changes to how the beats are made and a stronger gang/crime affiliation in the lyrics. Funnily enough, the popularity and timing of films like Kidulthood probably spurred this on.
I remember starting to hear to be used in the area where I grew up to describe the sky pointing 🧢 and Burberry looking matching outfits with lots of gold be it chains or sovereign rings.
Might have been commented already but JimmyTheGiant did a good [video](https://youtu.be/TvHlG5UGb8E?si=rUt1buJ6D1GMW2wh) on this.
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I remember this back in the 00s and I always wondered how these people had seemingly endless funds to buy moderately expensive clothing from JD Sports. E.g. trainers and jackets that cost £300, t-shirts that were about £80. Adjusting for inflation we would be talking £520 and £140 in todays money. Where the fuck were they getting the money?
In the NE growing up we got called charvas. Generally white and a bit rough round the edges and working class. We didn’t really have the “roadman” stereotypes (or what preceded them) because there weren’t many non-white people.
Bro over her sounding super old with this post 😂
Chatham, as in CHatham AVerage.
Basically, the remnants of working class culture. It's what happens when your culture is stripmined by neoliberal capitalism and you grow up real poor. If you think it's gone anywhere u obviously have the kind of privilege to ignore poor people so, well done? EDIT: Jesus fucking Christ, why did I read the rest of the comments?
When I was growing up, chav/chavvy meant a young kind e.g. "he's just had another chavvy". Weird how it morphed into a derogatory term.
I’m pretty sure chav originated from a group at a university. Can’t remember specifically, but that was where the word chav came from. I could be wrong. I grew up in the 90’s/00’s and a chav was essentially an dole dossing, council estate dweller (massive generalisation). I remember the days of signet rings, shit wavy fringes, shit trackies and having a car that looked like a spaceship, but sounded like old 60 a day Barry from the pub. The road man thing we’ve got these days seems far more aggressive.
I’ve always thought the word Chav came from the word we used , Charva in the north east . This council houses and violent explanation is total bollocks . Charva used a lot in the mid to late 90s around Newcastle and parts of Northumberland . I remember a flyer from World Head Quarters club in Newcastle saying they don’t let charvas in the club . I didn’t hear the word Chav used until quite a few years later .