Phat

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>This sort of stuff originated when we were smutty-minded, but
>ever-so-smart teenagers. You did cute misspellings. Phat for
>fat, phuque for the f-word, and if you had access to a really
>fancy ball on your IBM Selectric, you did c-cedillas, caron-s,
>and other such diacritics for other such words. Yes, we elites
>got down and dirty.

Entirely true. I like 'phucque' myself.

It's also true that 'fat' is among the thousands of words which have been
applied in slang to the private parts and their applications.

There's also 'Fat City', especially popular around 1970 IIRC, and there are
many other casual and slang uses of 'fat'.

However, the origin of the word 'phat' from 'fat' just doesn't ring true to
me. I think this connection is likely coincidental.

(1) The Chapman and Dickson dictionaries give 'phat' = 'cool'/'rad' =
'attractive and up-to-date'. Intuitively I like 'emPHATic' as the origin,
parallel to 'RADical'.

(2) The Chapman and Spears books refer to a second sense, =
'sexy'/'shapely'. Both books quote a theoretical origin as an acronym from
"Pretty Hips And Thighs". This is even less believable than the old
chestnut about 'For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge' > 'f*ck'. That is, IMHO,
this is transparent retrospective folk-etymology. I think this sense is
simply a more specialized form of (1).

[Both senses may have been reinforced by the pun with 'fat'.]

[Apparently there is also 'phat' = 'fat' used in typesetting (= 'easy
[work]'); likely a coincidence, I think.]

Any evidence to refute my hypothesis? [I presume someone else has proposed
this one before?]

-- Doug Wilson