Halls of ivy

[Anne Lambert]

Anyone have any explanations on the real origin of "posh"?

Grant Barrett wrote:

> On Sunday, March 12, 2000, James E. Clapp <jeclapp at WANS.NET> wrote:
>
> >Yes.  How do people come up with these things?  And why do others give them
> >credence?  I think the phenomenon is related to general popular paranoia:
> >The obvious explanation for something must be a cover-up for a much more
> >complicated (and usually sinister) truth, and the more self-evident the
> >explanation the more devious and dangerous the plotters are.
> >
> >Examples from Roswell, New Mexico, etc., etc., abound; but this general way
> >of thinking was nicely illustrated for me when I was clerking for a federal
> >judge and we were assigned one of those cases filed periodically by
> >completely wacky people...
>
> Very nicely put.
>
> Anyone who's ever worked for a newspaper of any size probably has a wacko file on
> hand filled with letters espousing theories of this type. My favorite conspiracy, which
> I may still have around here somewhere, was an eighty-some-odd page manifesto
> linking Reagan, Kennedy, the Pope and Michael Jordan. Our paper had a policy to try to
> print all letters; even this one saw a few column inches because it was far more
> interesting than the repetitive deluge from Jesus-wheezing harpies about the sin of
> homosexuality.
>
> The most bothersome thing, to me, about these unverified theories (even in
> etymology), is that there is a gradation from true to false and these theories run the gamut.
> Some are no more slightly off than a bad if-then statement, so though still false,
> they may seem plausible.