Zounds! Thou Shouldst Forsake Ye Olde Timey Language!

 On one of the Facebook book promotion groups I joined but hardly ever do anything in, I saw someone post a meme type thing relating to their book.  And it had a quote that I don't know if it was from a character in the book or someone reviewing it, but it really struck me as odd.  I'd post the exact thing but of course after I commented on it, it disappeared.

Anyway, it was something like, "The [whoever] family panders to the elite but they hold the bourgeois in their heart."  

Reading that I was like, "Wait, aren't the elite and bourgeois the same thing?  You can't pander to them and hold them in your heart at the same time."  I said as much and predictably the person who posted it got all huffy and pouty, saying, "That's their opinion.  In my book it's fine."  (I don't know if she meant it's MY opinion or if she meant "their" as in someone else wrote it?) And then probably she or a moderator deleted the post so I couldn't find it.  

In lieu of recent posts, I didn't try to be too much of a dick about it.  I mean, I didn't say, "You're so stupid!  Don't you know they're practically the same!  You idiot!"  But still they acted like a thin-skinned baby.

I had to do my own research then to satisfy my curiosity.  It's one of those cases where it turns out we're both right.  It's just how you use the word "bourgeois" has changed in the last 250 years.

The 18th Century French definition meant the middle class, not the elite.  So by that original definition, the quote the author (or reader) used is correct.  

But largely thanks to Karl Marx, the definition of bourgeois began to change in the mid-19th Century.  "Bourgeois" began to mean more well-off than middle-class people.  In the recent movie Death on the Nile, a rich woman who considers herself a socialist says, "This place is too bourgeois for me."  Meaning that it's decadent, not middle-class.

A couple of TV shows I've watched have used the word "boujie," which is slang for upscale.  The word is a shortened version of bourgeois according to the urban dictionary.

So you can see how when I read it, my interpretation is different, because I was thinking in modern terms, not 18th Century terms.  That's the problem when you use fancy words instead of just saying what you mean.  Instead of "bourgeois" if the person in the quote had just said, "working-class" or "middle-class" or "common people" then it would have worked a lot better.

If you're going to use a fancy, old-timey word, make sure you know what the modern meaning of it is--unless of course your story takes place in 18th Century France.  Even then it might confuse your readers who are used to it being used in the modern context.  That's why so often in classic books like Shakespeare or Dickens there are footnotes to explain terms that might not make sense to modern readers.

Oh, and if someone calls you out on using old-fashioned words, maybe don't be a whiny bitch about it.  Maybe explain why you used it that way.