120 igafencu.com
oney talks but, all too often, with a giveaway
accent. While the refined, public-schooled
tones of those born into wealth are
synonymous with old money and generations
of entitlement, the rougher, less-polished
speech of those whose fortunes were more
recently made betray the speaker as someone
for whom prosperity is an awkward mantle,
someone still transitioning from a have-not
to a most-definitely-have. While both parties
are summarily bracketed together as the One
Percent – the strata of society whose means
transcend their needs a billion times or more- they are unwilling bedfellows, mutually
antagonistic tribes with little in common save
the weight of their wallets.
There is, indeed, an unbridgable fault
line between Old and New Money. While
the former cuts a swathe through society
functions, feted and petitioned, the latter
lurks uncomfortably, invited solely in the
hope that they might be persuaded to part
with a little of their recently-gotten gains for
some modish cause or other, and are sure to
inappropriately wield their fish knife before
the second course is served.
Typically, these more recently-monied
men and women are dismissed as the
‘nouveau riche’ or, more disparagingly
still, ‘the nouveaus’. It is a term freely
bandied by those with generations of family
wealth behind them, along with whispered
critiques of the fashion faux pas and errors
“Typically, more recently-
monied men and women are
dismissed as the Nouveaus”
in elementary etiquette of those whose style and
manners remain at a far lower level than their
bank balances.
Despite its currency, the concept of mocking
the suddenly affluent goes back a long way. The
Ancient Romans, for instance, coined the term
‘novus homo’ (literally ‘the new man’) as a way of
differentiating between those of a noble lineage
and those who made their fortune as merchants
or something equally grubby.
For better or worse, it’s a form of social
stratification that has endured over countless
centuries and one that has gained fresh impetus
in the Digital Age. With the lives of so many of us
instantly assessable from our social media feeds,
the often-ill-advised ostentation and unwise
indulgences of the more latterly loaded are both
highly conspicuous and instantly commentable.
Such transgressions, though, are not restricted
to the cyber-realm, with the sheer volume of their
cash-loaded lifestyles spilling on to real life. But how
to detect them and how to avoid being inadvertently
perceived as one of their number? Well, there are
five giveaway signs to bear in mind...