Would people have been more or less shocked, if Andrew Mitchell had called the policeman a "prole" rather than a "pleb"? I can't remember when I heard anyone call anyone a "prole" apart from my mother - but I imagine if she used it (the popularisation of the term presumably came from 1984) other people did too. Perhaps "prole" is even more offensive - even though to be a member of the proletariat is really the normal status of most of us - why should we mind? Plebs are probably socially superior to proles, being small shopkeepers/businessmen - whereas proles, well, we're the working class, with no access to capital (apart from those of us who own our houses). Is it any more snobbish to use one rather than another?
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