Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 (MC840302); site boring.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!mcvax!boring!steven
From: steven@boring.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Seeking origin of 'posh'
Message-ID: <6388@boring.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Apr-85 02:18:29 EST
Article-I.D.: boring.6388
Posted: Thu Apr 18 02:18:29 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Apr-85 03:03:03 EST
References: <1397@amdahl.UUCP>
Reply-To: steven@boring.UUCP (Steven Pemberton)
Distribution: net
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 36
Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax.LOCAL


In article <1397@amdahl.UUCP> gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) writes:
> Most smaller dictionaries say 'origin unknown', but [...] according to the
> Dictionary of American Slang, 'posh' is said to derive from 'port out
> starboard home', referring to the preferred location of a stateroom on a
> ship going out to India and again coming home to England; this claim was
> reported 1952.  The earliest written use is in 1951 in the New Yorker.  It's
> meaning is given as 'smart; chic; expressive of good, or at least expensive,
> taste.'
> 
> Webster's New World Dictionary meekly suggests that 'posh' comes from obsure
> British slang for a dandy, but it is uncertain.
> 
> My 1958 Funk and Wagnalls International does not even have this word! (not
> surprising for relatively new slang, though).
>
> Anyone out there with an OED or other etymological tools who can help with
> this?

The OED supplement reports the first use as 1912 in Punch; they say 'origin
obscure' but points to a 1897 Dictionary of slang that defines 'a posh' as
'a dandy'. Chambers Dictionary says "Popularly supposed to be from 'Port Out
Starboard Home', the most desirable cabins when sailing to and from the East
before the days of air-conditioning, but no evidence has been found to
support this."

My grandmother claims that porters used to chalk "P.O.S.H" on the bags of
such travellers, and that's why it became used, but I can't tell you if she
really saw this, or if it's just 'popular supposition'.

Another word in (British) English with a similar popular etymology is the
slang word for cigarettes 'fags' (maybe this should be rot13 for the US :-).
This is popularly supposed to originate from a make of cigarettes that had
"For A Good Smoke" on the packet. However, it is more likely from "fag-end"
meaning the stump-end of anything, and then by analogy to "fag".

Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam; steven@mcvax.uucp