U and non-U English

U and non-U English usage, where "U" stands for upper class and "non-U" represents the aspiring middle and lower classes, was part of the terminology of popular discourse of social dialects (sociolects) in Britain in the 1950s. The different vocabularies often appeared counter-intuitive, with the middle classes preferring "fancy" or fashionable words, even neologisms and often euphemisms, in attempts to make themselves sound more refined ("posher than posh") and the upper classes using plain and traditional words that the working classes also used, as, confident in the security of their social position, they had no need to seek to display refinement. By the late 20th century the usefulness of the terms as signals of social class had decreased, and by the 2020s they had ceased to be reliable signals.