I've read this expression a time or two on these forums but still can't quite determine its meaning. From the way it has been used, it is clear that it is a derogatory statement about a category or group of people but I'm uncertain who they might be.

Anyone prepared to help an iggerant colonial out on this one??

:confused:

It was a term used by the great and the good to describe the great mass of the ignorant working class, illiterate scruffy oinks who did not realise that working 18 hours in a day in the Mill or Pit was actually good for them.
Those slightly higher up the social scale with a slight interest in matters political would have been described as 'The man on the Clapham Omibus"

I always thought it was a tongue in cheek expression based on the premise that the lower the class of person the less they washed....

Anyone who wears sports clothing to go shopping.

Anyone who takes their children to Asda so they can smack them.

Anyone who names a child after a premium brand, i.e Porche or Rothmans.

Anyone who apes black American culture whilst living in the UK.

Anyone who chooses their holiday destination based on the price of booze and the availability of "English breakfasts"

Anyone with a blood relative who owns a Vauxhall car with a stereo worth more than the car. :}

The Great Unwashed, the Plebs, The Proleteriat, The Masses, The Ignorant Majority, The Serfs....you know?;)

Notwithstanding the above, I always believed 'The man on the Clapham Omnibus' to be a legal expression to test the reasonable-ness of a situation or argument, the man in question being the average member of public metaphorically called upon to decide common law as happens in the UK. P'raps Flying lawyer has a view?

The great unwashed were transported years ago.

Ric

"The Great Unwashed" is the kind of term to make one begin plotting the end of the bourgeoisie in candle lit cellars.

However, despite being something of a pinko luvvie myself, I was once irritated beyond endurance by an excessively leftie female.

When I used the term "The Great Unwaged" she became incandescent to a very pleasing degree.

Well as the working class have all but disapeared in this green and pleasent land now, I suppose the term would now apply to the new underclass,incidently I think they are a better fit for Orwells description of the Prols,kept happy and firmly in their place, by drugs and pornography.
;)

The term, "the great unwashed", was used by Edmund Burke at the time of the French Revolution, but became commonplace when used by the author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in reference to his critics in the dedication of his novel "Paul Clifford".

He is also Snoopy's authorial muse, having started the novel with the immortal line, "It was a dark and stormy night...." :O

Anyone who's ridden the London Underground in the rush hour on a hot summer day could probably identify the Great Unwashed specifically and individually!

Edmund Burke and Edward Bulwer-Lytton be damned. I think Maninblack has it right

Lets add

Anyone who buys the supermarket 'value' products

Anyone who's tv never leaves ITV

Sun readers

People who think 'doing america' means visiting Disneyland

Manchester United and Tottenham supporters

(I wonder how many people I can upset with these?)



"If it wasn't for your stiff little fingers, you wouldn't even know you were dead'

What pray tell is wrong with the mighty yiddo's? Flaps, there's a stray Gooner on the loose.

Parapunter please enlighten on 'yiddo's'and 'Gooners' ASAP. ;)

Oh I can do the enlightenment.

Gooners= Arsenal FC who are the best football team in the UK and who are located in North London and seem tio have developed a winning habit albeit with a strong French (Freedom) accent.

Yiddo's = the other team premiership in North London who seem to believe winning is a dirty word and who are clinging onto their premiership status by a thread. My heart bleeds for them :D

Thanks folks, I think I have a fair idea now of what is implied by the expression.

There ya go ... you've all contributed to the education of an antipodean .... kinda gives you the warm and fuzzies doesn't it!

:cool: :D

Flaps, Yiddo's are Tottenham supporters, so called, because they are historically believed to count a large part of the North London, South Hertfordshire Jewish community amongst their fans, whereas Gooners are Arsenal fans who conveniently forget that football is a marathon, not a sprint and that most Spurs fans are willing to dig in for the long wait & the return of the glory days, long after the ill disciplined sack of French ponces mincing round Highbury have been put out to seed. Merde alors!

Not that I'm bitter or anything:{

Parapunter :ok:

Stange there are no comments from Manchester United supporters . Still, most of them have never been to Manchester

How many Manyoo supporters does it take to change a lightbulb?

Three.


One to change the bulb, one to buy the commemorative tshirt & video & one to drive the other two back to Torquay where they came from:}

Parapunter, I guess it's an international joke.

We know them in reference to Belgium people and the number instead of 3 is 5. It takes one to hold the bulb and 4 to turn the table he's standing on.

Nice one parapunter (oops agreeing with a yiddo - agh)

Kaos, the joke is actually that most Manchester United supporters do not live in Manchester, Instead they live elsewhere like Torquay or Cape Town. True mancs support Manchester City, the other team from Manchester

the joke is actually that most Manchester United supporters do not live in Manchester, Instead they live elsewhere like Torquay or Cape Town. Unlike Arsenal and Liverpool fans, who ALL live in London and Liverpool, eh? :rolleyes: Have a listen to 606 on Radio 5 and you'll hear them - from all points of the compass.

True mancs support Manchester City, the other team from Manchester
Could be, could be. However, those born in Salford prefer football and tend to follow Manchester United.
:ok:

I'm Leeds United actually....

Not that they're doing so well at the moment......http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=sportsNews&storyID=437085&section=news

TTFN

Mac the Knife
I'm Leeds United actually....

Wot, all of it?

You need to travel a lot further afield than Torquay before running out of MU supporters, matey. I have a holiday piccy of the youth of a village in mid-Thailand helping to pack up my balloon after landing in the rice fields. All in traditional Thai costume.

Which appears to be red-and-white-with-numbers-on....

Ripline

Instead they live elsewhere like Torquay or Cape Town. True mancs support Manchester City, the other team from Manchester yep, I met a lot of ManU fans in China and Japan. It is truly a Multinational.

As is Syphilis. :E

And, indeed, Jealousy.:E

Tony D - as is syphallis

And so we return to the thread.... :)

I always thought it was a Marie-Antoinette type quote.... so French Revolution period was always uppermost in my mind - added to the fact that some English people say that the French never wash.... :eek:

Thats about as biased as I can get.... being of French descent....

I think it's the european Union who found out that our French friends spend zip, nada, zilch on deoderant, floss & toothpaste, thus making them the soap dodgers of Europe & thus the contemporary great unwashed. It is infact a myth that Paris closes down for two weeks in summer each year. It's just that noone can bear to use the metro.

Merde alors, encore!


Rarely heard phrases in France: C'est ou, le Savon?

Thank the Lord for that, I thunk for a moment you was going to say Arabs never wash.
:rolleyes:

I love this myth about true Mancunians supporting Manchester City.

If that were true then due to the size of the city they would sell out at every match, have shedloads of cash and be a roaring success.

Historically Manchester protestants supported City and the Catholics supported United but it was nowhere near as hard a rule as Celtic/Rangers.


MiB (a cured bead juggler whose mam used to drag him to Old Trafford as a kid)

Rangers? now who are they again? :E

Historically Manchester protestants supported City and the Catholics supported United but it was nowhere near as hard a rule as Celtic/Rangers.

Now I never knew that.

Ok, so true City attracting true mancs is a myth. Man U supporters coming from Torquay, Cape Town, Borneo still stands.

Funny, I've always associateed the term "The Great Unwashed" with Brits. This stems from childhood, when my Dad returned from a trip to the UK and told me that he had met an Englishman who told him that "I have a bath once a week, whether I need it or not"!!:yuk:

Ah but times have changed Ralph. These days, we Britishers tend to have a shower once a week whether we need it or not.