Posh as an abbreviation???

[taliesin238]

Has anyone heard about the word 'posh' being an abbreviation?? Apparently it is 'Port....' something!! Does anybody know?? Apparently it is something to do with rich people standing on a boat!! Does anybody know??

[hammersgirl]

Port Out Starboard Home

[slaney]

Port out.. Starboard home ..but this origin of the word is disputed.

[mattymatt123]

Port Off Side Harbour , the rich used to pay more to go POSH when they left a harbour hence being called posh if you have money.

[taliesin238]

thank you hammersgirl!!! But what does it mean and why has this come to mean POSH??

[taliesin238]

LOL slaney, that just like the word GOLF, 'gents only, ladies forbidden'. Does anybody know if this is true or not???

[slaney]

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/abo utwordorigins/posh?view=uk

[geo0939]

When the old colonials were going back and forth to India and such like 'port out and starboard back' would keep them on the shaded side of the ship.

[rosycider]

Its a song sung by Grandpa Potts ( Lionel Jefferies ) in Chitty Chitty bang bang! and i think he mentions India too
so Geo's comment concurs with this. These films contain a wealth of useless information ;-0

[stewey]

Continuing on with what Geo said. You had to be wealthy to take these trips, and you had to be very rich to secure one of these cabins. And at that time it was not considered "proper" in British society to show that one had been exposed to the sun: "Are you a navvy, a gardener, or a mere Colonial my man!" Therefore the rich folks did the 'posh' thing [port out, starboard home]. Posh=Rich.

Now whether that's true or not........sounds good!

[Quizmonster]

I'm afraid that the 'port out, starboard home' explanation is nothing more than an urban legend. The very first time the word appeared in print, meaning 'grand/swell' was in 1918, having earlier appeared as 'push' - with a "u" - in a P G Wodehouse story in 1903.
As British officials and officers with wives and families had been sailing to and fro India for almost three centuries by then, it's clearly too late for the �port out' explanation to have any substance. It was also rejected in the Mariners' Mirror decades ago and presumably sailors of all people would have known.
Finally, the steamship company, P & O, themselves deny the phrase ever existed! According to The Oxford English Dictionary, it is probably no more than a corruption of Wodehouse's 'push'. It goes on to say the legend (quote) "lacks foundation".