Thursday, April 26, 2012

Do you mean fresh or UHT?

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have been described as "two posh boys who don't know the price of milk" by another MP.  So what does "posh" actually mean?  There's a nice story that back when this country governed India, there were a lot of people going back and forth between the two countries.  No air travel back then of course, so you went by boat, and if you were rich enough, you would want to travel in as much comfort as possible, and in particular to be on the shadier side of the ship to be protected from the heat of the sun once you got into the tropics.  This would be the left-hand side of the ship on the journey out, and the right-hand side coming back.  Left-hand side of a ship is of course the port side, and the right-hand side the starboard side, and the story is that bookings for such people would be marked as "POSH" (Port out, starboard home).  Unfortunately there's no evidence for this - but come to that, there's no evidence that it's not true either, and it's such a good story I always hope that it's right.  These days "posh" tends to be used - as the MP has - as a pejorative word for anybody who speaks nicely and has more money than you.

No comments: