Posh, naff, twits of decent Blighty

Posh ... was slang for money before it
became Victoria Beckham's nickname

 

THERE are plenty of words that show we're from dear old Blighty as opposed to another English-speaking country.
Language expert Tony Thorne has listed the best in his new book, The 100 Words That Make The English.
Here are some of our favourites.

Ale: Modern form of the Old English "alu" from a prehistoric Indo-European word for "bitter".
Blighty: First World War slang for Britain, originally from the Hindi word "bilayati" meaning foreign.
Cad: 1940s Oxbridge slang for ungentlemanly scoundrel, from the 18th Century abbreviation of the French word "Cadet" for younger/lower-class person.
Chat: First used in 1530 for conversation like the chitter or chatter of birds.
Clever: Conveys mild appreciation of intelligence, perhaps from archaic Middle English "clivers" for claws, as in quick to grasp.
Cottage: Small, humble home, from pre-historic West European "kuta" for dwelling.
Cuppa: First used for tea by playwright PG Wodehouse.
Decent: The opposite of feckless, lazy and troublesome, from the latin verb "decere" meaning "to be suitable".
Fag: Cigarette, possibly from "fag-end", used to denote the last and worst part 200 years before cigarettes appeared.
Frump: Unstylish woman, from 17th Century English for grumpiness, possibly an imitation of a snort of derision.
Grumble: As in "musn't grumble". From ancient Northern European words mimicking the sound of thunder.

Cottage ... small, humble home, from pre-historic West European 'kuta' for dwelling

Gurning: Grotesque and quintessentially self-ridiculing English face-pulling. Jobsworth: First used by Melody Maker magazine in 1970.
Kip: Sleep, originally from the old Danish "kippe" or German "kiffe" for a hovel, later to mean cheap inn or brothel.
Naff: May come from NAAFI - the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes.
Oik: Social inferior, possibly from the sound of inarticulate speech or from the Greek "oikon" for family.

Cuppa ... first used for tea by playwright PG Wodehouse

Pluck: Courage, from the name given in the early 1800s for guts pulled from the carcass of an animal.
Posh: Either from "Port out, starboard home" or slang for money.
Sorry: Not the hardest word. Shakespeare used it 90 times and Thorne claims that it is used 368million times a day in the UK.
 

 

Tosh: Rubbish. First written in 1892, possibly from two existing words for nonsense - "twaddle" and "bosh".
Twee: First used at turn of the 20th Century, an adult immitation of the childish mispronounciation of "sweet", now used to describe all things cloyingly English.
Twit: Silly person, from the 1920s, much repeated in Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Windy: Sir Alex Ferguson calls it "squeaky bum time". Today used to mean flatulent but from early 20th Century meant cowardly, from sailor term "getting the wind up" for onset of fear.
Yob: Troublesome, uncouth youth, from the word "boy" reversed.