"Mizter T" wrote in message

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 don't disagree with you, and it wasn't me who used the term. I was
simply explaining the subtle British (mis)use of a term to Luko, who had
quite reasonably assumed it had the literal English meaning.

As you say, there are many other British class-based terms that confuse
even other native English speakers, for example:
- "Public" schools, which are actually expensive private schools. This
really confuses Americans, for whom public schools are the free ones
provided by the state.
- "Middle class", which actually refers to rather well-off and often
snobby people (similar to "professionals"), not the middle-income group
that foreigners might reasonably assume.
- "Working class", many of whom don't actually work (as exemplified in
the recent Prescott documentary).

We also hand out large numbers of medals for membership (etc) of the
non-existent British Empire, and life-long (but no longer hereditary)
grand titles to retired or would-be politicians, as well as to large
donors to political parties. I though it a particular scandal that the
disgraced Michael Martin almost immediately becomes Lord Martin.