It’s in the title. ‘Everyone on 70k’ is a pay cut if you were in more than 70k, as any professional would be. It’s clearly wrong as it doesn’t make any sense, but that’s the source they were referring to.
Would call center staff, receptionists etc not be professionals (I.e. is there a use of the term I'm not aware of?). Is it people doing work requiring degrees?
Are you just asking what a 'professional' is? As in you're not a native speaker?
The etymology is from 'someone who has professed vows' and traditionally means someone who's part of some kind of learned society. In the past it was classes like doctors, lawyers, religious ministers. Over the industrial revolution it began to include engineers. Engineers used to be part of learned societies (I am, as a software engineer), but now it's more relaxed in many places, with software engineering being at the extreme end of relaxed.
So not call centre staff, because that's not part of any learned society and are not part of a career that would traditionally have been so but has become more relaxed.
Wikipedia explains well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional.
Are you confusing the term with just 'anyone who works for a living'? That's not what 'professional' means.
Indeed.
> Are you confusing the term with just 'anyone who works for a living'? That's not what 'professional' means.
That's how it's commonly used in sports, perhaps that's where I got it from. I'd call any athlete who performs their sport for a living "professional", not because they are e.g. part of a specific league, but exactly because they can do it for a living.
But regardless: which people in a typical company would be the professionals? People with protected titles (Lawyers, etc)? How do e.g. Engineers fit in?
To a certain extent, I think you are guilty of relaxing the definition just as you accuse the OP of doing.
Strictly defined “professional engineers” are licensed and do take those vows of ethical behavior. However, the vast majority of people claiming an engineer title do not meet this criteria. While somewhat pedantic, it does carry legal meaning. Some states have even brought lawsuits in this regard, although I think they were ruled against.
Imagine the stereotypical Asian immigrant middle-class parents and if there's a profession they'd be absolutely thrilled for their kid to go into, that's likely professional class. The happier these imaginary people are, the more solidly professional class it is.
