From: jerryg@jaiser.rain.com (Jerry Gaiser)
\nSubject: POSH<\/p>\n
This re-emergence of POSH has caused me to dig into one of the best books
\n(IMNSHO) on the etymology of words, The Browser’s Dictionary by John Ciardi.<\/p>\n
I quote (of course without permission):<\/p>\n
—
\nposh Swanky. Deluxe. [A direct borrowing of the form but not the sense of
\nRomany ‘posh’, half. Brit. Gypsies commonly, if warily, worked with Brit.
\nrogues. ‘Shiv’, Romany for “knife,” came into Eng. through this association.
\nSimilarly ‘rum go’ is at root ‘Rom go’, “a Gypsy thing,” hence a queer thing.
\nBrit. rogues came to know posh in such compounds as ‘posh-houri,’ half pence,
\nand ‘posh-kooroona,’ half crown, so associating it with money, and from
\nXVII to mid XIX ‘posh’ meant “money” in thieve’s cant, the sense then
\nshifting to “swank, fashionable, expensive” (“the good things money can
\nbuy”)]
\n NOTE. A pervasive folk etymology renders the term as an acronym of
\np(ort) o(out), s(tarboard) h(ome), with ref. to the ideal accomodations
\non the passage to India by way of the Suez Canal, a packet service provided
\nby the Peninsula and Eastern steamship line. The acronym is said to explain
\nthe right placement of one’s stateroom for being on the shady or the lee
\nside of the ship. On the east-west passage it is true, the ship being north
\nof the sun, that the acronym will locate the shady side (though time of year
\nwill make a substantial difference). The lee side, however, is determined
\nby the monsoon winds, and since they blow into the Asian heartland all
\nsummer and out all winter, only the season can determine which side will be
\nsheltered. The earlier dating of ‘posh’ as glossed above sufficently refutes
\nthe ingenious (but too late) acronymic invention. And as a clincher, veterans
\nof the Peninsula and Eastern, questioned about the term, replied that they
\nhad never heard it in the acronymic sense.
\n—<\/p>\n
Just another data point.<\/p>\n
—
\nJerry Gaiser (jerryg@jaiser.rain.com) (voice) 503-359-4017
\nFidonet 1:105\/380 (bbs) 503-359-5111
\nPBBS n7pwf@n7pwf.or.usa.na
\n .. I read banned books ..<\/p>\n
