"posh"

[Aaron E. Drews]

On Tue, 14 Mar 2000 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote:

}Gerald Cohen <gcohen at UMR.EDU> writes:
}
}>>>>>
}    "Everyone familiar with London  speech knows that the  _l_ of words
}like _milk_, _I'll_, _well_ and such are "gulped";  after vowels the true
}London accent pronounces _l_'s much like the _oo_ of _moon_.  When the
}vowel before the _l_ is an _o_, the effect is to blend the two together.
}No distinct _l_ results.  Londoners, in particular the Cockneys,  pronounce
}the verb _to polish _ as _pawsh_, to write it in an American fashion, or
}_posh_ to give it the authentic, if non-standard, British spelling.  This
}verb is fully conjugated:  "I, you, we, they _posh_;  he, she, it _poshes_;
}it is, they are _poshed_ types, or live in _posh(ed)_ digs."
}<<<<<
}
}Even intervocalically?
}
}Data, anyone?

"...L vocalisation...may extend to word-final prevocalic environments, _#V
(_fall off_).  Beaken (1971) even found children vocalising /l/ before a
word-internal morpheme boundary plus vowel, as ['foUIn] _falling_; but
this has not yet been observed in adult speech, where internal linking /l/
remains..." Well 1982: 313, _Accents of English_, vol II, the British
Isles.

But
"The environment in which vocalisation has been attested [includes]
word-final intervocalic (e.g. _legal info_ [ligGwWInf&G] [ascii can't even
come close to this IPA, sorry]).  Vocalisation in thie context was found
only in the speech of the younger group.  By contrast, Wells (1982: 321)
suggests this is not a possible environment for vocalisation in London
English.  In all systems, vocalisation is blocked in word-initial
contexts, and word-internal intervocalic contexts, regardless of
morphology (e.g. _pullover_, _shallow_, _Eleanor_).  Tollfree, L.  1999.
South East London English: discrete versus continuous modelling of
consonantal reduction.  In Foulkes, P & G. Docherty (eds) _Urban Voices:
Accent Studies in the British Isles_.  London: Arnold.

It looks like the authorities of Cockney would dispute "posh" coming from
"polish", at least directly.  I personally find it more feasible that
"port outward" etc.  "posh" still might have it's birth in Cockney rhyming
slang.  I'll ask around, but there aren't many Cockney specialists here.

--Aaron


________________________________________________________________________
Aaron E. Drews                               The University of Edinburgh
aaron at ling.ed.ac.uk                  Departments of English Language and
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron       Theoretical & Applied  Linguistics

"MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF"
        --Death