Aspirants
The Wife thought she had stumbled upon an egregious misspelling in a silly travel magazine - twice. Why? Simply because she had never read the word before. The word was "tony", and was used with both nearby Kirkland and Bellevue. Kirkland, according to a blurb, was a "tony burg"; Bellevue was a "tony town." She thought the author had meant "tiny", as in, well, tiny.
I had heard the word before in this use. What's interesting here is that the silly travel mag author (perhaps of both pieces, but only one was credited) just tipped his hand. He is not himself, you see, tony in any way. He is, rather, just the opposite.
"Tony" as a descriptor follows a pattern I snarkily noted with another word over four years ago, "classy". Even the dictionary description fits perfectly with that bastardized c-word. "Tony" is "marked by an aristocratic or high-toned manner or style," just as "classy" denotes:
a : elegant, stylish
b : having or reflecting high standards of personal behavior
c : admirably skillful and graceful
Both, it must be noted, are described as "informal" words. Why? Because, quite simply, those in formal surroundings would be marked as the proverbial turds in the punchbowl simply to utter them. Let me explain.
In a horror book recently perused, I tripped upon something of which I had never heard. The main character and narrator was a guest at a country estate, the old style country estate, one where the resident family of aristocratic lineage did nothing all day and expected their servants to tend to the entirety of the household maintenance duties. After taking a bite of breakfast, he noted with admiration that it was the best (breakfast food) he had ever tasted. The table got a bit frosty at this. The woman who had invited him explained that what he said was actually insulting.
Why? In no household in which I had ever dined was it considered an insult to compliment the chef. Ah, but that proves the nub of the disconnect. In every household that has ever hosted me as a guest, one family member or another always prepared the food. In the country estate, the food was prepared by servants - paid servants. Of course it's the best food you've ever had! We pay good money to have only the best prepared in our home! To note the food's quality is to assume the family cannot afford the best.
This of mine rant originated back in college. A woman we knew (who coincidentally had my last name and later appeared in Playboy while still in school - but that's another story) had a sister who wrote for one of those silly travel mags. This prompted C. to try her hand. Before she sent it to sis, though, C. decided a few of her friends should proofread it. That task fell to myself and another in our dorm, a Communications major who would later move back to Canada and rise to news anchor of a Winnipeg television station.
The piece C. wrote was, to put it mildly, tepid at best. There was only one glaring problem. C. had used the c-word, "classy," to impart style and elegance to whatever was being described. My roommate and I both pointed this out, but we couldn't really put our fingers on what was wrong with using the word. I finally said, "If you say 'classy,' you ain't." Classy becomes the ultimate ironic indicator.
It gets better. Decades after this encounter with the c-word, I was captain in a local tour boat fleet. After one private cruise, one of my bartenders shares a moment with one of the more interesting passengers. He had made the rounds, picking up bottles and glasses that had been abandoned as the dancing got started. Later, a woman wearing "the gaudiest crap" came to the bar and asked if he had seen what happened to her beer. Remember, only the warmest and flattest beers get scooped up in a cleaning round. He informed her it had probably been cleaned.
"So," she said, "aren't you going to give me another one?"
He was a bit stunned, but complied. Something on his face got her ire up. She waved one of those gaudy baubles under his face and said, "Hey! Don't give me that attitude! See this?" She waves the ring. "This is classy. I'm a classy lady!"
If only he had known what I said to C. so many years earlier.
And here is where those with - those with class, those living a high-toned lifestyle - differ from those of us without. Since those With can afford the best, it would be silly to suggest that this place or that with these Withs would be "tony" or "classy." Of course it is; where ever these people are to be found can be described this way! They can be hunkered around a still wearing rags and the scene would be tony or classy! They are there. (Of course, the still would be a bottle of something brewed in the last hundred years, and the rags were Gucci castoffs worn casually, but still.)
Those With would simply note scenes (vacation spots, things to do) that are not to their liking, while noting what a good time they had at those places fitting their requirements. Only those who are not would describe the scene with words denoting the tone and class.
In an article on the distinction, a travel agent to the wealthy called this latter group "aspirants." If you can afford to stay in Monte Carlo at one of the finer hotels, you can; if you need to check with the accountant first, you are an aspirant. It's a simple case of if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. If you don't have to ask, you're "in." If you ask, you aspire to be "in."
And those on the very bottom of the aspirant pile use words like "tony" and, worse, the c-word.
And here we find the ultimate irony. Getting back to that "misspelled" magazine and the town and burg described therein, I can say with absolute certainty that both Bellevue and Kirkland are far from the description offered in the 'zine. Every day, for example, I drive my bus past Bellevue auto dealerships offering not just the more common Acuras and Beemers, but also more exclusive brands like Aston Martin, Rolls Royce & Bentley, Lamborgini, Ferrari and (my fave, of course) Tesla. On the same road you find interspersed strip malls offering Micky Dees, Booger Fling and more generic cheap sandwiches and ethnic grub. This is the real Bellevue, far from high-toned. It is a city dominated by strip malls. No place that considers itself exclusive builds exclusivity around strip malls, the most unsightly, ungainly and uninspired architectural base known to mankind.
Both Bellevue and its bastard younger brother Kirkland, in fact, were just farmland and country estates (the old kind) accessible only by ferry or looong drive on winding country roads until 1949 when the first cross-lake floating bridge was built. Once cheap car travel came to be, those with money bought up the real estate and planned new cities, but planned them with serious bet hedging. Just to the west of Washington State's forth most populous city Bellevue, for example, one finds Clyde Hill, Medina, Hunts Point and other micro cities. These independent municipalities were planned specifically to avoid urban creep the likes of which negatively affected Seattle. Even though the biggest shopping center sits between Bellevue Way and NE 100th, commercial development will never extend beyond that latter street simply because it is the "city" boundary to Clyde Hill, and Clyde Hill allows no commercial properties. It is strictly residential, filled just with houses. Sure, lots of those houses are McMansions, but none sell or make a damned thing. Go even further west and Clyde Hill abuts Medina, a city with an average household income somewhat skewed by its richest resident, a man who owns the company responsible for most of the software running today.
So the Eastside of Lake Washington is dominated by cars. Not only dominated, but filled with people who regard public transit as low-class. I regard these people as the ultimate aspirants, small-minded folk who sit in their padded, overpriced rolling cages and fail to interact with those they regard as poor. Seriously, read another driver's account of efforts to deliver some serious non-automotive transit to the Eastside and the reaction it gets:
“There have been numerous studies that suggest that, uh, light rail makes it easier for some folks who are not always… welcome [ nervous laughter ] because of their personal intents uh, to, uh… it makes it easier to get here”
- Joseph Rosmann of Build a better Bellevue
Another Bellevue businessman, Kemper Freeman, Jr., notes that his mall (the one near NE 100th Street) is a haven for his customers, people who like shopping away from the "puffy jacket crowd." Oh, and he means business. There is a major bus stop just outside his mall, but you wouldn't know you were near the mall in question. To get to the main entrance, bus riders have to walk either a full block or into a loading dock. The main "Welcome to Bellevue Square" sign greets visitors just outside the parking garage.
There is nothing high-toned or high-class with these perspectives. These are the same attitudes that penned residential sundown clauses that prevented anyone without lily-white skin from owning property in certain areas. Since these clauses became unconstitutional, automobile ownership and use has become the new class barrier. Dmitri Orlov sums the situation up nicely:
The universal right to drive a car is the linchpin of the American communal myth. Once a significant portion of the population finds that cars have become inaccessible to them, the effect on the national psyche may be so profound as to make the country ungovernable. Solving the underlying transportation problem, through the reintroduction of public transportation or other means, is beside the point: the image of the automobile is indelibly imprinted on the national psyche and it will not be easily dislodged.
(Dmitry Orlov, Reinventing Collapse, New Society Publishers, 2008, pp. 24-25)
And the mentality of those who judge others strictly on what they have, either in terms of possessions, status or lineage? Far from high-minded, high-toned or high-classed, this thinking - just as The Wife suspected - is tiny.
I had heard the word before in this use. What's interesting here is that the silly travel mag author (perhaps of both pieces, but only one was credited) just tipped his hand. He is not himself, you see, tony in any way. He is, rather, just the opposite.
"Tony" as a descriptor follows a pattern I snarkily noted with another word over four years ago, "classy". Even the dictionary description fits perfectly with that bastardized c-word. "Tony" is "marked by an aristocratic or high-toned manner or style," just as "classy" denotes:
a : elegant, stylish
b : having or reflecting high standards of personal behavior
c : admirably skillful and graceful
Both, it must be noted, are described as "informal" words. Why? Because, quite simply, those in formal surroundings would be marked as the proverbial turds in the punchbowl simply to utter them. Let me explain.
In a horror book recently perused, I tripped upon something of which I had never heard. The main character and narrator was a guest at a country estate, the old style country estate, one where the resident family of aristocratic lineage did nothing all day and expected their servants to tend to the entirety of the household maintenance duties. After taking a bite of breakfast, he noted with admiration that it was the best (breakfast food) he had ever tasted. The table got a bit frosty at this. The woman who had invited him explained that what he said was actually insulting.
Why? In no household in which I had ever dined was it considered an insult to compliment the chef. Ah, but that proves the nub of the disconnect. In every household that has ever hosted me as a guest, one family member or another always prepared the food. In the country estate, the food was prepared by servants - paid servants. Of course it's the best food you've ever had! We pay good money to have only the best prepared in our home! To note the food's quality is to assume the family cannot afford the best.
This of mine rant originated back in college. A woman we knew (who coincidentally had my last name and later appeared in Playboy while still in school - but that's another story) had a sister who wrote for one of those silly travel mags. This prompted C. to try her hand. Before she sent it to sis, though, C. decided a few of her friends should proofread it. That task fell to myself and another in our dorm, a Communications major who would later move back to Canada and rise to news anchor of a Winnipeg television station.
The piece C. wrote was, to put it mildly, tepid at best. There was only one glaring problem. C. had used the c-word, "classy," to impart style and elegance to whatever was being described. My roommate and I both pointed this out, but we couldn't really put our fingers on what was wrong with using the word. I finally said, "If you say 'classy,' you ain't." Classy becomes the ultimate ironic indicator.
It gets better. Decades after this encounter with the c-word, I was captain in a local tour boat fleet. After one private cruise, one of my bartenders shares a moment with one of the more interesting passengers. He had made the rounds, picking up bottles and glasses that had been abandoned as the dancing got started. Later, a woman wearing "the gaudiest crap" came to the bar and asked if he had seen what happened to her beer. Remember, only the warmest and flattest beers get scooped up in a cleaning round. He informed her it had probably been cleaned.
"So," she said, "aren't you going to give me another one?"
He was a bit stunned, but complied. Something on his face got her ire up. She waved one of those gaudy baubles under his face and said, "Hey! Don't give me that attitude! See this?" She waves the ring. "This is classy. I'm a classy lady!"
If only he had known what I said to C. so many years earlier.
And here is where those with - those with class, those living a high-toned lifestyle - differ from those of us without. Since those With can afford the best, it would be silly to suggest that this place or that with these Withs would be "tony" or "classy." Of course it is; where ever these people are to be found can be described this way! They can be hunkered around a still wearing rags and the scene would be tony or classy! They are there. (Of course, the still would be a bottle of something brewed in the last hundred years, and the rags were Gucci castoffs worn casually, but still.)
Those With would simply note scenes (vacation spots, things to do) that are not to their liking, while noting what a good time they had at those places fitting their requirements. Only those who are not would describe the scene with words denoting the tone and class.
In an article on the distinction, a travel agent to the wealthy called this latter group "aspirants." If you can afford to stay in Monte Carlo at one of the finer hotels, you can; if you need to check with the accountant first, you are an aspirant. It's a simple case of if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. If you don't have to ask, you're "in." If you ask, you aspire to be "in."
And those on the very bottom of the aspirant pile use words like "tony" and, worse, the c-word.
And here we find the ultimate irony. Getting back to that "misspelled" magazine and the town and burg described therein, I can say with absolute certainty that both Bellevue and Kirkland are far from the description offered in the 'zine. Every day, for example, I drive my bus past Bellevue auto dealerships offering not just the more common Acuras and Beemers, but also more exclusive brands like Aston Martin, Rolls Royce & Bentley, Lamborgini, Ferrari and (my fave, of course) Tesla. On the same road you find interspersed strip malls offering Micky Dees, Booger Fling and more generic cheap sandwiches and ethnic grub. This is the real Bellevue, far from high-toned. It is a city dominated by strip malls. No place that considers itself exclusive builds exclusivity around strip malls, the most unsightly, ungainly and uninspired architectural base known to mankind.
Both Bellevue and its bastard younger brother Kirkland, in fact, were just farmland and country estates (the old kind) accessible only by ferry or looong drive on winding country roads until 1949 when the first cross-lake floating bridge was built. Once cheap car travel came to be, those with money bought up the real estate and planned new cities, but planned them with serious bet hedging. Just to the west of Washington State's forth most populous city Bellevue, for example, one finds Clyde Hill, Medina, Hunts Point and other micro cities. These independent municipalities were planned specifically to avoid urban creep the likes of which negatively affected Seattle. Even though the biggest shopping center sits between Bellevue Way and NE 100th, commercial development will never extend beyond that latter street simply because it is the "city" boundary to Clyde Hill, and Clyde Hill allows no commercial properties. It is strictly residential, filled just with houses. Sure, lots of those houses are McMansions, but none sell or make a damned thing. Go even further west and Clyde Hill abuts Medina, a city with an average household income somewhat skewed by its richest resident, a man who owns the company responsible for most of the software running today.
So the Eastside of Lake Washington is dominated by cars. Not only dominated, but filled with people who regard public transit as low-class. I regard these people as the ultimate aspirants, small-minded folk who sit in their padded, overpriced rolling cages and fail to interact with those they regard as poor. Seriously, read another driver's account of efforts to deliver some serious non-automotive transit to the Eastside and the reaction it gets:
“There have been numerous studies that suggest that, uh, light rail makes it easier for some folks who are not always… welcome [ nervous laughter ] because of their personal intents uh, to, uh… it makes it easier to get here”
- Joseph Rosmann of Build a better Bellevue
Another Bellevue businessman, Kemper Freeman, Jr., notes that his mall (the one near NE 100th Street) is a haven for his customers, people who like shopping away from the "puffy jacket crowd." Oh, and he means business. There is a major bus stop just outside his mall, but you wouldn't know you were near the mall in question. To get to the main entrance, bus riders have to walk either a full block or into a loading dock. The main "Welcome to Bellevue Square" sign greets visitors just outside the parking garage.
There is nothing high-toned or high-class with these perspectives. These are the same attitudes that penned residential sundown clauses that prevented anyone without lily-white skin from owning property in certain areas. Since these clauses became unconstitutional, automobile ownership and use has become the new class barrier. Dmitri Orlov sums the situation up nicely:
The universal right to drive a car is the linchpin of the American communal myth. Once a significant portion of the population finds that cars have become inaccessible to them, the effect on the national psyche may be so profound as to make the country ungovernable. Solving the underlying transportation problem, through the reintroduction of public transportation or other means, is beside the point: the image of the automobile is indelibly imprinted on the national psyche and it will not be easily dislodged.
(Dmitry Orlov, Reinventing Collapse, New Society Publishers, 2008, pp. 24-25)
And the mentality of those who judge others strictly on what they have, either in terms of possessions, status or lineage? Far from high-minded, high-toned or high-classed, this thinking - just as The Wife suspected - is tiny.