Etymythology of posh, P. O. S. H.

Mon Sep 12 15:20:45 UTC 2011

Has no-one taken up LH's challenge yet?  Well ...

In Google Books:

"Polished digs" appears 6 times.  Three times
from the Indianapolis Monthly, 2003, 2003, and
2008.  Once with no preview from Time Out New
York Eating and Drinking Guide, 2004.  Once
irrelevant (verbal "polished digs").  And once from ...

The same place the one hit for "poshed digs"
appears -- Studies in Slang, by Gerald Leonard Cohen.

In Google Everything, "polished digs" appears
about 690 times, many on the first page referring
to location, location, location and apparently meaing "posh".

Back to Google Books:

"Posh wood" appears occasionally, but meaning
"luxurious".  ("Polished wood" 75,400 times.)
"Poshed wood|mahogany|walnut" does not appear.  I
didn't try other materials.  "Poshed" alone seems
too voluminous to examine (e.g., misreadings of "pushed").

Joel

At 9/12/2011 09:51 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>I have no quarrel with the fact that "posh digs"
>pulls up many hits.  Nor that "polished" occurs
>as a participial adjective, with a meaning in
>the same general ballpark (or cricket pitch) as
>"posh".  But to derive the former from the
>latter it would be more convincing if we had any
>examples of "polished digs", "posh
>badge/mahogany/wood".  In particular, "polished"
>when modifying these words is interpretable
>literally, as involving the prior application of
>polish or the appearance produced in that
>way.  To repeat my earlier query, are there
>*any* instances of "polished" modifying
>"digs"?  Or "posh" appearing as a modifier of
>anything that "polished" would literally apply to (badges, wood, etc.)?
>The fact that both modifiers appear in many loci
>isn't persuasive on its own.  And do we ever
>actually get "poshed" as an intermediate stage
>modifier?  Wouldn't we expect to if the proposed route is "polished" > "posh"?
>
>LH
>
>On Sep 12, 2011, at 12:18 AM, John Peter Maher wrote:
>
> > Polished and poshed, with Estuary English
> L-vocalization, both appear in many loci.
> >
> > Our texts range from scripture to the novel
> to the funnies. Now comes the internet to swell the corpus:
> >
> > I dunno, mate, I could get used to livin’
> like this. Posh digs, these... Such
> >
> > a polished badge Such a shiny gun Such a
> happy girl Is that really me? ... [i]
> >
> > —   avmists.gargoyles-fans.org
> >
> >
> >
> > It may not look as clean and polished as most
> comics, but it really helps ... at depicting
> the freak show of London's underground mutants or the posh digs that
.
> >
> > —groups.yahoo.com/group/thefourthrail
> >
> >
> >
> > “Posh digs, though,” Spike observed. ... Even
> the toilets were hidden away behind high stalls
> of polished wood, as private as closets and as easily overlooked. ...
> >
> > — www.drizzle.com/~eliade/season_noir_twelve.html
> >
> >
> >
> > It’s some posh digs where girls have
> debutante parties and old men have trysts ...
> it was beautifully furnished, the foyer walls a
> smooth curve of polished mahogany ...
> >
> > —pfyre.org.uk/rrambles/fiction/loftyideas3.html -
> >
> >
> >
> > ... the first at the Ambassador¤s posh digs
> in Paitilla, the second in none-to[o]-shabby
> ...Say the moon, bright enough to work by, polished on a sleeve of wind. ...
> >
> > — www.geocities.com/~pcpfpanama/lavaina/ lavainaaug2001part3.doc
> >
> >
> > [i] “A fine city that, a lousy driver him” is
> a construction taken to be hip slang, unaware
> that it is a slummers’ loan translations from Gaelic.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --- On Sun, 9/11/11, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu> wrote:
> >
> > From: Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu>
> > Subject: FW: Re: Etymythology of posh, P. O. S. H. ---reply #1
> > To: jpmaher at neiu.edu
> > Date: Sunday, September 11, 2011, 11:00 PM
> >
> > Peter,
> >
> >    Several replies have been sent. Here's the
> first one. The others will follow
> > right away.
> >
> > Jerry
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Laurence Horn
> > Sent: Sun 9/11/2011 8:51 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: Etymythology of posh, P. O. S. H.
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: Etymythology of posh, P. O. S. H.
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Sep 11, 2011, at 9:55 PM, Gerald Cohen wrote:
> >
> > > Here's a bibliographical reference for the discussion
> > > of P.O.S.H.:
> > > J. Peter Maher: "_Posh_". In: _Studies in Slang_, part (= vol.) 1,
> > > edited by Gerald Leonard Cohen. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.,
> > > 1985, pp. 64-65.
> > >
> > > Maher discusses and rejects the Port-Out-Starboard-Home etymology and
> > > suggests instead: "Everyone familiar with London speech
> > > knows that the _l_ of words like _milk_, _I'll_, _well_ and
> > > such are 'gulped'... Londoners, in particular the Cockneys,
> > > pronounce the verb _to polish_ as _pawsh_, to write it in an American
> > > fashion, or _posh_ to give the authentic,
> if non-standard, British spelling.
> > > The 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.
> > >
> > > Maher goes on to derive the adjective _posh_ from this _posh(ed)_,
> > > i.e.., ultimately from _polish_."
> > >
> > With any direct evidence of "polish" used as
> an adjective, or anyone connecting "posh" with
> "polish"?  Is "poshed" as in "poshed
> types/digs" ever attested?  Does even "polished
> digs" occur in print?   If not, it sounds
> suspiciously like an alternate
> etymythology.  The variant-of-"push" and Romany
> stories sound more plausible to me, if I had to guess.
> >
> > LH
> >
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