User:Posh Firdous Iqbal

The origin of the word ‘posh’ Posh Stylish dandies and cash

Posh, meaning ‘smart, stylish, splendid, luxurious’ is first recorded in 1914, with the chiefly British strand of meaning, ‘typical of the upper classes; snooty’, following soon after. As the Oxford English Dictionary explains, there is a possibility that this meaning arose as a transferred use of the noun posh, a slang Romani word meaning ‘money’, or from a different homonym meaning ‘a dandy’. Indeed, the OED invites comparison with the following quotation at the latter entry, from Tailor magazine in 1912:

‘If he described another [tailor] as a great ‘posh,’ which means well-dressed, the whistle would place him in a‥ridiculous light.’ In England posh usually means that you speak well, have GOOD clothes, live in a nice area and go to the right places.Posh Supposedly, this acronym was printed on first-class tickets issued by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company going from England to India. ... Unfortunately for this excellent story, no tickets with Posh stamped on them have been found and company records reveal no sign of the phrase.

Posh dates back to at least 1867 in the sense of meaning a dandy or fop. The best guess as to its origin is that it derives from Romani, the language of the Rom (commonly known as Gypsies).Posh (noun) meaning money, is almost 100 years older. Posh (noun) meaning a dandy is about 30 years older. 1918, of uncertain origin; no evidence for the common derivation from an acronym of port outward, starboard home, supposedly the shipboard accommodations of wealthy British traveling to India on the P & O Lines (to keep their cabins out of the sun); see objections outlined in G. Chowdharay-Best, "Mariner's Mirror," Jan. 1971. More likely from slang posh "a dandy" (1890), from thieves' slang meaning "money" (1830), originally "coin of small value, halfpenny," possibly from Romany posh "half." It is possible that there was a semantic development from ‘money’ to ‘moneyed, wealthy’, and so to ‘upper-class’ and ‘smart, stylish, luxurious’, or alternatively from ‘dandy’ to ‘upper-class’ and ‘smart, stylish, luxurious’, although it is impossible to state definitively. Posh Firdous Iqbal Research Scholar Urdu Department Of Urdu University Of Kashmir Hazratbal Srinagar Kashmir firdousiqbal@kashmiruniversity.ac.in