Peculiar Okafor: I am classy… Are you?

So here I am trying to earn my salary and this colleague browsing through blog-sites says ‘I love this lady, she’s soo classy. Peculiar, Don’t you think so?’ I simply responded that I didn’t think so and that was how a huge argument ensued.

I felt the celebrity in question was boring while my colleague was adamant that she was the classiest of Nigerian celebrities. In a bid to douse the argument, someone else asked us to define class and my people, na there we hang oh:

Me: It is having a good background and knowing how to behave.
Colleague: So if your father is not rich, you’re not classy abi?
Me: Okay, it is knowing what to say and acting right at all times. This celebrity in question always messes up in interviews.
Colleague: So because she messed up in an interview, she’s no more classy, a lot of our celebrities mess up. What about those who have never attended an interview?
Me: It is being able to hold your own regardless of where you are, it is ….. ( exasperated) oya you define class(y).
Colleague: It is being reserved, standing out, a girl having that ‘thing’ about her
Me; So every village girl who is reserved is classy,
Colleague: It is… in fact nobody can define it, when you see class, you would know.

This conversation went on for over an hour and this my colleague hardly argues so you know that it was a serious issue. In all, we agreed that we didn’t REALLY know the meaning of the word.

Not one to back down easily from an argument, I decided to surf the internet for definitions and I found a lot:

Urban dictionary.com
– An adjective meaning the following:
– very stylish and elegant
– not crude, or misgusting or dirty or depressing ( FYI, misgusting is a slang to describe something that is both mistaken and disgusting.)
– A deeper meaningful word for cool.

Dictionary.reference.com defined it as an adjective meaning of high class, rank or grade; stylish, admirably smart, elegant.

But then, the definition I really liked was from a visitor to Yahoo answers:

Class is style, wit, manners, intelligence, the type of people one spends time with. It is treating everyone with equal dignity and respect. It can walk with kings and keep its virtue and talk with crowds and keep the common touch. It never tries to build itself by tearing others down.
It is a cocoon of values: commitment, respect for learning, accomplishments and the feelings of others. It is being well spoken and well dressed. It is not going public with ones personal life. It is being the best you can be and doing the best you can do. It is good quality in everything.

We weren’t very satisfied and sought answers from friends via BBM and got a lot of answers ranging from the simple; poise and elegance to the very long ones. At this point, we weren’t reaching an agreement so we went further and asked friends to name classy celebrities and various names came up, a few more frequent than the others.

After reviewing the answers, we agreed that class might not have one definition as it means different things to different people.Just like beauty,it is in the eye of the beholder.

So dears, I’d love to hear your definition of class and Nigerian Celebrities you consider classy.

My classiest Nigerian celebrity is………
Have a great day.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime | Roxana González