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Snob is a pejorative term for a person who feels superior due to theirsocial class, education level, orsocial status in general;[1] it is sometimes used especially when they pretend to belong to these classes. The wordsnobbery came into use for the first time in England during the 1820s.
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.[1]
Snobbery existed also in medieval feudalaristocratic 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 thePrioress among theCanterbury 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".[2]
Snobbery surfaced more strongly as the structure of the society changed, and thebourgeoisie had the possibility toimitatearistocracy.[3] 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.[4]
The term "snob" is often misused when describing a "gold-tap owner",[1] i.e. a person who insists on displaying (sometimes non-existent) wealth throughconspicuous consumption ofluxury 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 characterHyacinth Bucket of the BBC comedy seriesKeeping Up Appearances.
William Hazlitt observed, in a culture where deference to class was accepted as a positive and unifying principle,[5] "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."[6] The English novelistBulwer-Lytton remarked in passing, "Ideas travel upwards,manners downwards."[7] 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 ofsocial insecurity, flourishing most where anestablishment 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.[8]
Ghil'ad Zuckermann proposes the termsnobbative to refer to a pretentious, highfalutin phrase used by a person in order to sound snobbish. The term derives fromsnob +-ative, modelled uponcomparatives and superlatives. Thus, in its narrow sense, asnobbative is a pompous (phonetic) variant of a word. Consider the followinghypercorrect pronunciations inIsraeli Hebrew:[9]: 184
A non-hypercorrect example in Israeli Hebrew isfilozófya, a snobbative offilosófya (פילוסופיה), which means "philosophy".[9]: 184 The snobbativefilozófya (withz) was inspired by the pronunciation of the Israeli Hebrew wordפילוסופיה by German Jewish professors of philosophy, whose speech was characterized byintervocalic voicing of thes as in theirGerman mother tongue.[9]: 190
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