Mizter T wrote:
On Jul 13, 3:15 pm, "Recliner" wrote:

"Martin Edwards" wrote:

Recliner wrote:
"Willms" wrote:
You think that only unprofessional people should commute to work?
In the UK, "professional" implies reasonably or very well-off people,
such as lawyers and accountants.
Not necessarily. It sometimes refers to moderately paid people like
teachers and quite low paid people like nurses.
No, I don't think so -- maybe headteachers, but not your average junior
teacher, and certainly not nurses. I'm not saying they aren't dedicated,
hard-working professionals, just that the colloquial British use does
have a status/class/wealth implication. I was just trying to correct
Luko, who seemed to think that anyone not in this vaguely defined this
category is therefore being insulted in some way. I also made the point
that this was UK usage; it's different in the US.

And I'm agreeing with Luko that the colloquial British usage of the
term is crap, and furthermore is actually perhaps something of a foil
for talking about class, status and wealth in an indirect fashion -
and is therefore worth challenging, rather than benignly accepting.

There's a whole number of common phrases that I avoid for various
reasons, one being that I think they carry with them a whole subtext,
another reason being that I think they';re intellectually lazy, and
yet another reason being that I think the phrase is stupid and doesn't
make any sense.

I agree. When I was a teacher, I often tried to point out the
incongruity of the term with our pay and, especially, conditions, but to
no avail.