Hustlers and fiddlers
By The Hamester · DUMFRIES, 20th January 2026
Reading the dictionary the other day - as you do - I came across a phrase that was new to me.
“Bunnet Hustler”
According to the Collins Dictionary, and I’m simplifying here … a Bunnet Hustler is a middle class person that regularly refers to their working class roots and trys to affect a working class persona. It seems to be a form of code switching that rubs some folk up the wrong way.
It got me thinking and I came up with my own variation.
“Bunnet Fiddler”
According the The Hamester’s Rattle Bag of wisdom, a Bunnet Fiddler is adjacent to a Bunnet Hustler, with one exception; the subject is different. A bunnet fiddler is a middle class person obsessed with someone else’s working class roots and feasting off of those. I suppose it can be heaped in with class tourism and class tourists.
Anyway, hopefully it’ll appear in dictionaries, long after I’ve gone. If they still exist.