further research is required, however....
POSH
From Saleel Nair: "What is the origin of the word posh?"
There are several suggestions for the origin of posh. The best known derives it from an acronym associated with the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company. It supposedly stood for "Port Out, Starboard Home". The Company is said to have marked the tickets of higher status passengers with this so that they were put in cabins on the side of the ship that got the benefit of the cooling sea breezes on the outward and return journeys from Britain to India.
The trouble is there's absolutely no evidence for it and P&O flatly denies any such term existed. It's just an urban legend, though rather a persistent one. Other suggestions, rather more probable, are that it is an abbreviated form of polished or polish (an example of what's called grammatical syncopation, where a middle syllable has been left out), or that posh originally meant "halfpenny" (from the Romany posh "half") and then developed into "money" before acquiring its present meaning. Or it may come from the slang pot ("big", hence a person of some importance).
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Bill
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"Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words."
King John 2.1.466
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