Etymology of "mosh"?

[Douglas G. Wilson]

At 09:18 PM 9/6/00 +0100, you wrote:
>>Two different stories:
>>
>>Thorne: "Dictionary of Contemporary Slang" (1990): under 'moshing':
>>"... invention influenced by such words as jostle, mash, mass,
>>squash, crush and thrust."
>>
>>Chapman: "American Slang" (2nd ed., 1998): under 'mosh': "[fr
>>British dialect, "mash, smash," found by 1848]"
>>
>>-- Doug Wilson
>
>
>The first one seems a lot more likely (esp. mash/squash), since the
>dialectal 'mash' word is not found in New Oxf D of E or Collins
>Concise, and since the dancing term was coined by youngsters I'm
>going to bet they might not've known an older dialectal word.

I tend to agree.

The OED 1848 'mosh' citation is from "Leicestershire Words".

'Mosh' seems like a plausible invention, perhaps along the lines of 'mush',
'smush' (both rhyming with 'push'), 'slosh', and ESPECIALLY 'mishmosh' (the
Random House dictionary lists all of these). 'Mishmash'/'mishmosh' (rhyming
with 'posh' etc.) has certainly been current for decades in the US.

-- Doug Wilson