Posh.

The previous two blogs have been about the posh. The word posh is used extensively for anything or anyone that appears to be wealthy or classy. Oddly, it is also used as a term of derision or mockery (Posh Spice is an example). Nobody would dare describe themselves as posh. It is surely an over used word; students seem to have few other ways of describing the prosperous or indeed their possessions.

Posh describes smug people, snobbish people, people with a certain accent or dialect, clothes people wear, holidays people take, cars people drive and so on. The list is endless. So there are posh people and posh objects.

I try to use the word as little as possible, with one exception. I (smugly) thought I knew the derivation of the word. I have told the anecdote to countless school classes whenever Britain's imperial past is under discussion that POSH comes from Port Out Starboard Home. This was the most expensive ticket to India that gave the posh passengers the most comfortable side of the ship (shelter from the sun) with the best views of the African coastline. I might even have said that POSH was stamped on their tickets. Great story, but sadly not an ounce of truth as I have discovered today.

All this talk of elites encouraged me to do a little research into the meaning of the word. The African sun has nothing to do with it; in fact the word was not in common usage until the 1930s. Where did it originate? It might have been a simple typo...P.G.Wodehouse used the word 'push' but it was typed posh in one of his novels to describe a mode of dress. Yet the most likely derivation for posh comes from the Romany language where 'pash' meant 'half' and was linked with 'half a crown', then a substantial amount of money.

Alas, one of my favourite anecodotes bites the dust.