RDP Saturday – POSH

Ragtag Daily Prompt of the day : posh
Saturday, September 22, 2018

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While not an anglophile, I often read novels set in Britain.  There are words that often come up that I like the sound of like the “posh”.

Posh

adjective: 

1. elegant, stylishly luxurious, fashionably exclusive.
“a posh Munich hotel”

2. typical of or belonging to the upper class of society
“she had a posh accent”

(note from me: this one is a maybe definition — not clearly stated by any source but implied that if a person is faking being upper class through their speech or action :

hifalutin, pretentious, pompous
“trying to talk posh”)

adverb:

1. in an upper-class way.
“trying to talk posh”

noun:

1.  the quality or state of being elegant, stylish, or upper-class.
“we finally bought a color TV, which seemed the height of posh”

(definitions from google, Oxford, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries)

 

Despite legends to the contrary, there is no evidence “posh” is a shortened version of “port out, starboard home”
Does ‘Posh’ Really Come From Ocean Travel? It’s a great story. But that doesn’t make it true.
Merriam-Webster

Wiktionary points out it was once slang for “money”
“A period slang dictionary defines “posh” as a term used by thieves for “money : generic, but specifically, a halfpenny or other small coin”.[1] An example is given from Page’s Eavesdropper (1888): “They used such funny terms: ‘brads,’ and ‘dibbs,’ and ‘mopusses,’ and ‘posh’ … at last it was borne in upon me that they were talking about money.” ”

The Free Dictionary by Farlex traces “posh” back to the Romani (gypsies)
“Posh meaning “money” (and perhaps also ultimately the posh meaning “a dandy,” too) is of Romani origin, like a number of other English slang words such as nark (“an informer”), pal, and shiv. Posh originated as a shortening of a Romani word meaning “halfpenny” that is recorded, for example, as posh-hórri in a 19th-century glossary of words from the variety of Romani used by the Romani people of England. Posh in this compound word means “half,” while hórri is a form of hórra, “penny.” ”

 

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