Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens had lunch yesterday. This would have been after Hitch wrote his attack on University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole's command of Persian, but before he would have read Cole's blistering response to it. But anyway, the matters for discussion were not Persian, but modern English. Sully explains:
Speaking of welfare reform, I just got back from a long lunch with Hitch. It was one of those rare occasions when I was able to introduce him to a new word: "chavs." It was quite the rage in London when I was there.
We'll leave the broader sociological analysis of what their interest in the term might mean to one side and just note that it's been around at least since 2004. The accent works wonders for their media careers, but at some point aren't you expected to have some contemporary knowledge about the place?
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