Miffy

[Aquagility]

Chambers defines Miffy as "quick to take offence". But years ago it was used to mean "non-U", supposedly from "milk in first". Is there any justification for this?

[Jumbuck]

That first definition dates back over 400 years and so must have come first. Haven't been able to find your other meaning, so maybe it was wartime slang...

[Jumbuck]

by 400 I mean over 300 years to the 17th Century (I'm having a bad day with typos)

[mallam]

400 is closer, actually, but for miff, the noun it comes from (OED 1623). Where did you find 'miffy' that early? OED has 1810 for that. But the apparently irregular derivation 'mifty' which preceded it but is now obsolete, was around from 1699. Is that what you are referring to?

Yes I remember MIF. I have had a good look for it on dictionary sites, and was astonied I could only find it on one:
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Milk+in+First

Very few google hits in that sense, too, one of them oddly enough "In reference to tea, what does "miffy or tiffy?" mean?" I will answer "Milk in first (Non-U) or tea in first (U)".

I have been aged, and surrounded by ageds, all my life, but I would have thought it was more common (lol) than that. I know people who cannot contain their horror at the idea of putting the milk in first!

[Aquagility]

Thank you both.
mallam, you and I must be the only people on the planet who have been aged all our lives!

[jno]

Cassell slang dictionary gives C17 for miffiness, C19 for feeling miffed, which sounds right. Words weren't invented from acronyms till the mid-20th century so milkinfirstiness sounds like a postwar joke, quite likely to do with the 1950s Mitford U/non-U business.

Jumbuck, you were right first time, it's the 21st century now.

[mallam]

Ah, but were you BORN aged, aqua?

Yes jno, I was pretty sure it was Mitford who popularized it, but I think she actually only reported it as a class-conscious fetish that had only recently caught on with the not-quite-gentry!

I think youre still right about this being a postwar thing, with the mixing of the classes in the war.

Youd have to go a helluva long way downmarket to find a caff that put the mif these days, I opine. Even by the cup, you gets your tea and you grabs the milk jug.

[Slapshot]

Had to read that twice....I thought you said MILF....