CHAVS may be bad news for some. They are young, of course, and they hang around shopping centres and wear baseball caps, trainers, branded shirts and thick gold chains. But help and immortality of a sort are at hand.

The compiler of an Oxford University Press dictionary has nominated chav as the buzzword of the year. But she also believes the word may yet evolve into something less derisory.

Susie Dent said: “I think we may find that because a lot of people have been quite outraged by it, it starts to transform itself into something quite positive. Chav fashion may become something quite cool. “I think it’s a really horrible word but it’s quite a good example of a word that has burst out on to the scene. It is quite surprising in a way. It is one of quite a few social class labels that have emerged.”

Her new book, Larpers and Shroomers: The Language Report, lists buzzwords of the year from the start of the 20th century. Demob was the word in 1920, racism in 1935, big brother in 1949, beatnik in 1958, miniskirt in 1965, toyboy in 1981, having it large in 1993, and sexing up in 2003.

Ms Dent’s book also predicts a backlash against the suave metrosexual man in the form of the scruffy retrosexual, who is defined as spending as little time and money as possible on his appearance.

The aim of the book is to provide a “snapshot” of today’s language. Ms Dent said: “It is taking a fairly detailed look at what is happening to language now without worrying too much about whether these changes will make an impact in six months’ time.”

Chav is thought to have come from the mid-19th century Romany word chavi, meaning child. Ms Dent says that it is a classic demonstration of the way in which websites can popularise new, or resurrected, words.

The phenomenon probably started with the chavscum.co.uk website and was then taken up by users of www.popbitch.com, “an irreverent celebrity bulletin board, populated chiefly by people working in the media and entertainment”. It has attracted attention because it is seen in liberal circles as a phenomenon based in a resurgence of class prejudice.

Barely heard of before this year, new derivatives of the word chav are now appearing almost daily: “Chavspotting has become a national pastime, and celebrity chavs (as opposed to ordinary chavsters) are a major focus area, and most recently the adjective chavtastic has emerged”.

The word has been common argot among builders and construction workers in the London area for years, being used in much the same way as another once popular word of Romany origin, “mush”. Ms Dent, though, regards it as having fallen into obscurity before its revival today.

The word may also disappear, though, just as quickly as it burgeoned. Already the chavscum site concedes that chavs can also be known as Neds, Townies, Kevs, Charvers, Steeks, Spides, Bazzas, Yarcos, Ratboys, Kappa Slappers, Skangers, Scutters, Janners, Stigs, Scallies, or Hood Rats.

Chav’s kiss of death could quite possibly be its use in papers like The Times, leading to the word’s early abandonment by those to whom it refers.

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