From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia See also: The Snob (disambiguation) "Snobs" redirects here. For other uses, see Snobs (disambiguation). [hide]This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2013) This article possibly contains original research. (March 2008) The neutrality of this article is disputed. (January 2011) Snob à L'Exposition, by Victor Eugène Géruzez (fr) (Crafty) A snob is a person who believes a correspondence between status and human worth.[1] The term also refers to a person who believes that some people are inherently inferior to him or her for any one of a variety of reasons, including real or supposed intellect, wealth, education, ancestry, power, physical strength, class, taste, beauty, nationality, fame, extreme success of a family member or friend, etc.[citation needed] Often this form of snobbery reflects the snob's personal attributes.[citation needed] For example, a common snobbery of the affluent is the belief that wealth is either the cause or result of superiority, or both.[citation needed] Both definitions are used as a pejorative. Contents 1 Etymology 2 Snob victim 3 Historic manifestations 4 Analysis 5 See also 6 References 7 External links 7.1 Etymologies Etymology The word "snobbery" came into use the first time in England during the 1820s. It was said to have derived from the habit of many Oxford and Cambridge colleges of writing sine nobilitate (without nobility) or snob next to the names of ordinary students on examination lists in order to distinguish them from their aristocratic schoolmates.[1] The French version though is much more accepted: sans noblesse, essentially the same but derived from the Plantagenets rule of England. These common, but typically wealthy students would then acquire symbols of aristocratic status (driver, maid etc.), and were then mocked as "snobs" by the aristocrats.[citation needed] After the later changing of the meaning of the term "snob," people who emulate aristocrats are now referred to as "snob victims."[citation needed] Snob victim The term "snob" is often misused when describing a "gold-tap owner,"[1] i.e. a person who insists on displaying (sometimes non-existing) wealth through conspicuous consumption of luxury goods (clothes, jewelry, cars etc.).[citation needed]Such person on the contrary craves the attention of snobs, trying to convince them with such consumption of his or her wealth and therefore status.[citation needed]Sophisticated snobs will then often assess that in such case there is no equation between (apparent) wealth and status, reducing the gold-tap owner to the object of their mockery. Such person is referred to as a snob victim.[citation needed]The snob victim may be exploited economically by being deceived by a seller of aspirational goods (by means of e.g. advertising) into believing that status can indeed be acquired through consumption of such goods.[citation needed] Historic manifestations Snobs can through time be found ingratiating themselves with a range of prominent groups – soldiers (Sparta, 400 BC), bishops (Rome, 1500), poets (Weimar, 1815), farmers (China, 1967) - for the primary interests of snobs is power, and as the distribution of power changes, so, naturally and immediately, will the objects of the snob's admiration.[1][citation needed] Snobbery existed also in mediaeval feudal aristocratic Europe, when the clothing, manners, language and tastes of every class were strictly codified by customs or law.[citation needed] Chaucer, a poet moving in the court circles, noted the provincial French spoken by the Prioress among the Canterbury 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] The disparagement is an element of the snobbery.[citation needed] Snobbery surfaced more strongly as the structure of the society changed, and the bourgeoisie had the possibility to imitate aristocracy.[citation needed]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.[citation needed] However, a form of snobbery can be adopted by someone not a part of that group; a pseudo-intellectual, a celebrity worshipper, and a poor person idolizing money and the rich are types of snobs who do not base their snobbery on their personal attributes.

• published: 01 Dec 2014
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