WASP -- The one person I know who's embraced the designation was pretty solidly middle-middle class (as in, lived on the "poor side" of one of the richest suburbs in America).

I don't think of WASP as necessarily wealthy. To me it has a more whitebread, "republican-cloth-coat" feel to it.

Okay, black crusty cockles sounds icky, no matter how punkass.

Can you have moist crusty cockles?

How far back have various people gotten with their ancestral tracking?

Great-grandparents, and that's it. Grandpa doesn't even know which village he was born in in the old country, so anything earlier is pretty much gone. Hooray for peasants!

Maybe middle-class, but I too wouldn't assume servants-and-prep-schools from WASP.

I think moist things, by definition, are not crusty. You only get crustiness when you dry things out. Hence the difference between pie dough and pie.

"republican-cloth-coat"

What does this phrase mean? I think I have a general "staid conservative" vibe from it, but the cloth-coat part is a mystery to me.

aurelia, are you/they sure it's not just the engine computer notifying you of scheduled maintenance for the timing chain?

moist crusty cockles?

that sounds so icky.

I think I have a general "staid conservative" vibe from it, but the cloth-coat part is a mystery to me.

Comes from Nixon's famous "Checkers" speech in the late '50s or whenever. Nixon was talking about his wife, trying to convince people he was not a crook.

It comes form the Nixon "Checkers" speech, IIRC. He was reacting to allegations of kickbacks by saying his wife, Pat, didn't wear a mink, but a good Republican cloth coat.

Hooray for peasants!

Bwah! Cracks me up.

My family heritage is that of supporting the "wrong" side of things. Sided with Bonny Prince Charlie, fought for the British in the Revolution (even though they lived in Massachusetts), that sort of thing.