Common misconceptions.
Personally I believe that pronouncing something being 'common' or not is just another of those stigmas that leads to further segregation in society as well as enforcing the class division when we should be really striving for cohesion.

Who really gives a fuck if you're sitting on a sofa or a settee? Be grateful you've got something to slump down in when you get home from work. Dinner, tea, lunch, supper - who gives a fuck? Be grateful you have food to eat. Lavatory or toilet? At least you're not defecating al-fresco and risking contaminating a water source from which you'll have to live from.

Now something being tacky and tasteless, that's a different issue and one that I'll happily contribute to.

No length joke to end, because that's common.
(Marmoset Bored bored bored of cnuting revision..., Fri 17 Oct 2008, 15:07, 13 replies)

I agree
I don't like the title of this QOTW. Is it even possible to say the word "common" without sounding like a horrible toff? It just seems like a chance for all the twats who got uppity about last week's QOTW to get their own back. "You are just bitter and jealous of my amazing wealth so you should shut up with your prejudices... but it's perfectly OK for me to write a long list of why I look down my nose at you"
(Binary Solo loves a bit of algebra, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 15:19, closed)

Good point
you make. Also, lots of these answers wax lyrical about things that aren't 'common' but just bad manners and behaviour and gross pretension, as well as poor grasp of the language.

I thought that QOTWs were meant to be entertaining anecdotes rather than venomous, undisgused contempt for others who don't behave as you were brought up to.
(Marmoset Bored bored bored of cnuting revision..., Fri 17 Oct 2008, 15:24, closed)

this terribly elitist notion of cohesion
I can assure you is not aspired to by chav dole scum.

There is division.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 15:21, closed)

maybe I'm in the minority, but
I don't equate "common" with "chav". I'll happily slag off chavs because I think that's an attitude thing, not a class thing. Calling someone "common" just smacks of snobbery. I dunno, maybe it's just me
(Binary Solo loves a bit of algebra, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 15:31, closed)

also
sofa/settee and lunch/dinner is a regional difference, not a class difference. Several people are effectively saying that Northern = common. A tad offensive, no?
(Binary Solo loves a bit of algebra, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 15:24, closed)

Well, I'm from the North.
Yorkshire, Scotland and Manchester. And Southern twats piss me off.
"Tongue in cheek."
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Fri 17 Oct 2008, 15:28, closed)

I look at this qotw
in the same way as I do any other, as a good excuse to attempt to amuse people. I am working class rural Scottish through and through, I was divorced at 27, I have a tattoo (tastefully hidden, mind) and my ex had a tramp stamp, I don't think I could ever be considered "classy", yet there are billions of things I find tacky, low and dammit, downright common. It's human nature, it's why God invented burberry.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 15:28, closed)

Yeah, again
"Common" to me means "lower class", not "tacky". Meeeh. Maybe I'll just shut up and go away :S
(Binary Solo loves a bit of algebra, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 15:32, closed)

It very definitely does matter
if you defecate or urinate in a Toilet or a Lavatory.

The Lavatory has always been the facility itself, the Toilet simply a handbasin. These were, on trains at least, traditionally in separate rooms across the corridor from one another.

Around the 1860s when they were trying to squeeze more people onto trains someone decided to combine both Lavatory and Toilet into a single room. Unfortunately two signs on the door would have been confusing to the lower classes- so they settled on a single sign stating simply "Toilet". And the name stuck.

So it's really important that you don't defecate in your own toilet!
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 16:14, closed)

IF!!!
If we lived in the 1860's that might be true. If you told someone the toilet was the handbasin and they used it as suggested, i reckon you'd be pretty upset with the result!
(el perro grande, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 21:36, closed)

why
do these types of QOTWs bring out the sanctimonious hippy types? Beautiful sentiments, sure, but that's not how the world works, nor does anyone* care. Go back to recycling your bio-yoghurt. Cohesion, my ring.

(*based on a sample size of me)
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 17:02, closed)

Oooo
you really are a hard women crackhouse. It makes me quite damp.
(Bazongaloid, Fri 17 Oct 2008, 20:49, closed)

^
Okay I really need to learn to be more articulate, and not illicit scathing comments. I am far from a sanctimonious hippy type but personally I think there is a distinction on what is perceived to be common, and what is just pure snobbery from what some of the other posts have proved.
(Marmoset Bored bored bored of cnuting revision..., Mon 20 Oct 2008, 11:01, closed)