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Etymology
 posh etymology of more




From: mtepper@panix.com (Michele Tepper)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: More on "Posh"
Date: 17 Apr 1996 01:36:28 -0400

ACHTUNG! Do not follow up to this post unless you have already carefully read the archived posts available at TAFKAC:

http://tafkac.org/language/etymology/posh_etymology_of.html

OK, everyone else, let's continue...

This is from the wonderful book I bought this afternoon, _The Man In the Bowler Hat: His History and Iconography_, by Fred Miller Robinson (ISBN 0-8078-2073-3). He is describing George and Weedon Grossmith's "popular [book] _Diary of a Nobody_, originally serialized in _Punch_" which is a both satirical and sympathetic portrait of a middle class London family:

"If the Pooters have a significant problem, it is with their son Willie, a more 'modern' character who, according to his father, is 'not falling in with our views.' Willie has been freed by his family's respectability to have a certain amount of contempt for it.... Weedon Grossmith's two illustrations of him show him in a curled and short-brimmed bowler and clothes stylish enough to have been put together at some cost (ironically, he loses his intended to a Mr. Murray Posh, who manufactures three-shilling hats)." (55-56) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The posts archived at TAFKAC list the earliest usages of 'posh' as an adjective as being in the early twentieth century. _Diary of a Nobody_ was published in 1892. Might we therefore hypothesize that this popular tale's upscale milliner might be one of the adjective's etymological sources? After all, there are examples of literary references making their way into the common language in this time period: AFUers will perhaps recognize 'podsnappery' from Dickens's _Our Mutual Friend_. This doesn't explain the "push" variant, and no doubt there's a linguist or lexicographer out there to prove me wrong (Jesse Sheidlower, are you still lurking?) but I will persist in finding this significant until proven wrong.

Michele "four-shilling Hat" Tepper

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: More on "Posh"
Date: 17 Apr 1996 11:10:29 -0400

Michele Tepper <mtepper@panix.com> wrote: >
>ACHTUNG! Do not follow up to this post unless you have already carefully
>read the archived posts available at TAFKAC:
>
>http://tafkac.org/language/etymology/posh_etymology_of.html

Heed these words.
>
> "If the Pooters have a significant problem, it is with their son
>Willie, a more 'modern' character who, according to his father, is 'not
>falling in with our views.' Willie has been freed by his family's
>respectability to have a certain amount of contempt for it.... Weedon
>Grossmith's two illustrations of him show him in a curled and
>short-brimmed bowler and clothes stylish enough to have been put together
>at some cost (ironically, he loses his intended to a Mr. Murray Posh, who
>manufactures three-shilling hats)." (55-56) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>The posts archived at TAFKAC list the earliest usages of 'posh' as an
>adjective as being in the early twentieth century. _Diary of a Nobody_
>was published in 1892. Might we therefore hypothesize that this popular
>tale's upscale milliner might be one of the adjective's etymological
>sources?

It is one of the uses cited in the OED. The OED has 6 entries for "posh." One of them contains:

2 slang. A dandy.
Perh. a different word.
1867 E. FITZGERALD Let. 5 Jan. in T. Wright Life E. FitzGerald (1904) II. 81, I believe I have smoked my pipe every evening but one with Posh [sc. the nickname of FitzGerald's fisherman, Joseph Fletcher] at his house. 1890 BARReRE & LELAND Dict. Slang II. 146/2 Posh,..a dandy. 1892 G. & W. GROSSMITH Diary of Nobody 197 Frank..said..he had a friend waiting outside for him, named Murray Posh, adding he was quite a swell.

It is worth noting that these early uses of posh in the "dandy" sense are the names of literary characters.

> ... After all, there are examples of literary references making
>their way into the common language in this time period: AFUers will
>perhaps recognize 'podsnappery' from Dickens's _Our Mutual Friend_. This
>doesn't explain the "push" variant, and no doubt there's a linguist or
>lexicographer out there to prove me wrong (Jesse Sheidlower, are you
>still lurking?) but I will persist in finding this significant until
>proven wrong.
>

The entry for "posh" in the sense of "classy" points back to the "dandy" entry:
a. slang. [Of obscure origin, but cf. POSH sb.[2]

and then goes on to disavow the fabled "port out etc" folk etymology.

So it could well be that these dandies named (or nicknamed) "Posh" gave rise to the adjective "posh."

Bo "Plenty Of Sleuths Here" Bradham

From: jester@panix.com (Jesse T Sheidlower)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: More on "Posh"
Date: 17 Apr 1996 11:22:13 -0400
Organization: Random House Reference Dept.

In article <4l200s$ij1@panix2.panix.com>, Michele Tepper <mtepper@panix.com>, rearranged by JTS in a manner that would make Gardner Botsford proud, wrote:

>Jesse Sheidlower, are you still lurking?

<uncap, pour, let sit on ice, stir gently, strain, guzzle>
Shorry, jusht needed a little shustenance b'fore jumpin' into this thread...

Yes, here I am.

>ACHTUNG! Do not follow up to this post unless you have already carefully
>read the archived posts available at TAFKAC:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
, which quote verbatim two of the most etymologically unreliable books ever written, and praise them in passing.

>http://tafkac.org/language/etymology/posh_etymology_of.html

OK, I've carefully read them.

>This is from the wonderful book I bought this afternoon, _The Man In the
>Bowler Hat: His History and Iconography_, by Fred Miller Robinson (ISBN
>0-8078-2073-3). He is describing George and Weedon Grossmith's "popular
>[book] _Diary of a Nobody_, originally serialized in _Punch_" which is a
>both satirical and sympathetic portrait of a middle class London family:

First of all, Robinson's book is outstanding. U. of North Carolina Press, if I recall. Well worth a read.

[Robinson's summary of Grossmith deleted]

Robinson does not, I believe, quote the most interesting part of _Diary of a Nobody,_ the one that has direct relevance to the sense in question:

Frank...said...he had a friend waiting outside for him, named Murray Posh, adding that he was quite a swell. --George and Weedon Grossmith _Diary of a Nobody_ 197, quoted in OED2

>The posts archived at TAFKAC list the earliest usages of 'posh' as an
>adjective as being in the early twentieth century. _Diary of a Nobody_
>was published in 1892. Might we therefore hypothesize that this popular
>tale's upscale milliner might be one of the adjective's etymological
>sources?

Probably not.

The earliest example of _posh_ 'a dandy' comes several years earlier, in Albert Barrere and Charles Leland's _Dictionary of Slang,_ published in 1889-90. OED2, while quoting this definition, does not make clear how minor the reference is. The B & L entry is mainly about the sense 'money', and the 'dandy' definition is run in at the end almost apologetically, without a paragraph break, definition number, etc. Note that OED2 also gets the punctuation wrong.

Since the Grossmiths' book was first serialized in _Punch,_ it is likely that the "Murray Posh" character appeared at some point before 1892. Someone with easy library access could check. It is just plausible that if the novel appeared in serial form before 1888 or so, the character's name might have been taken up as a term for a dandy. For the term to spread so quickly in so short a time--short enough that B & L would bother entering it in a dictionary--one would expect that the term was fairly well known, but in fact the entry in B & L is the _only_ independently attested example known. (The term is also entered in Farmer & Henley's _Dictionary of Slang_ (1890-96, with later revisions, etc.), which was the basis for the first edition (1936) of Partridge's DSUE, but Farmer & Henley repeatedly copy entries from B & L, so I do not regard the F & L entry as a real attestation, especially since F & L don't add any additional information, as they often do.)

It is probably more likely that _posh_ 'dandy' had some limited currency, and the Grossmiths' named their character after that term, a common Victorian practice anyway.

Whatever the case, it is undeniably true that there was at least _some_ currency for _posh_ 'dandy' in the 1890s, and I agree that this is interesting in light of the later history of the word.

Additionally, I think that any connection to _posh_ 'money' is quite unlikely, since the term was current mainly among lower classes and usually referred to small amounts of money, and thus there are several unexplained steps to get to something approaching the present meaning. (Ciardi's bold statement of this shift as fact needs considerable justification.)

The "Port Outward, Starboard Home" canard is barely worth mentioning.

Jesse "Hat in hand" Sheidlower


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