What’s posh?

the derivation is from Port Out Starboard Home – someone who could afford to pay for a cabin on the cooler side of the ship

@omalleythealleycat wrote:

the derivation is from Port Out Starboard Home – someone who could afford to pay for a cabin on the cooler side of the ship

Thanks J. I knew the etymology, I’m just curious as to what it means to people today when they hear or use the word ‘posh’ to describe someone.

What image does it conjure up for you? To your mind, what makes a person ‘posh’? Is it all about money? Do they need to have a certain social standing? Is it a state of mind? That kinda thing…

Depends whether one assumes that ‘posh’ has positive connotations, or not.

For example: I went through much of my school years being labelled a ‘snob’ (I’m not; certainly not with THIS accent! :wink: ) but it was meant in a negative way.

Whereas ‘posh’ for me is synonymous with ‘making an effort’ (a posh dinner/dress/location, etc) …

This is posh

@sceptical guy wrote:

a combination of wealth, social confidence, odd accent (listen to Christchurch students at Oxford – a weird accent all of their own), birth into the top drawer of society, centre of a fawning social circle, the employer of personal servants, top public school (Eton or Harrow, Winchester for the radicals) and university (Oxbridge or Sandhurst) are the easiest. Lack of one or more of these makes someone either ‘gone down in the world’ oor wanna-be posh.

Manners are too complicated to cover the term – a posh person can be of High Culture or a Philistine, suave and/or boorish, loud-voiced or quietly-spoken, ruthless and/or formally considerate, sexually libertine or puritan.

Bankers were wanna-be posh over 100 years ago, but were looked down by the then-posh on as nouveaux-riche and Villa Tories who didn’t know how to enjoy hunting foxes and women.

The poshest women had to save their virginity for their husband to ensure that the children were his. After the children were born, it was chocks away and where’s the big gardener?

But posh changes. Today bankers look down on the lottery winners as the nouveaux riches; academics have moved from never having read Milton to never having heard of him.

Today’s lottery winnners are tomorrow’s posh. Nobody can stand being looked down upon, everyone seeks to look down on others. Unhappy bunch we all are.

I like that explanation, skept …

I’m not in the slightest bit posh (under any of those headings!), but I DO enjoy occasions where an effort has been made. Not an ostentatious effort, nor simply one of monetary worth … but genuine thoughtfulness.

So, I don’t think I am ‘wannabe posh’ either … just happy with who I am and what I want.

Is that more ‘sensible’ than ‘posh’?!

Someone once said that the difference between rich and wealthy is that how rich you are depends on how much money you have to spend. how wealthy you are depends on how long you could sustain you lifestyle if your earnings stopped today.

Put that way there are very few truly wealthy individuals.

I’d say ultimately posh is about wealthy rather than rich. Not so much about the banker looking down on the lottery winner, but about the truly wealthy promoting social norms that maintain their status.

The assurance you get from knowing that your family own, say, Berkshire is a bit different from knowing that you rent out a few properties on buy-to-let. And the steps you might take to preserve your stake in Berkshire would be far more wide-ranging and long-term.

So ‘posh’ will include not only learnable things like, like accent, courtesy, manners and style, but also the assurance that most people cannot threaten your position unless they act in a united and well-organised manner. Hence the truly posh have a reputation for being personally lovely/gracious/friendly as well as for ruthlessness. And hence the suspicion about a government full of ‘posh boys’.

Thus traditional manners and educated accent arouse suspicion: the person who knows your name and opens the door to you could be the same one who takes away your livelihood or freedom in search of a fox or deer; the accent that you could learn has been developed for the benefit of a club you can never join without spare county in your pocket.

You don’t send your (non-scholarship) child to a top public school for a world-class education, you can get that free at any number of local comprehensives, grammars or fee paying schools with a bit of extra tuition. You send them there to learn the norms of a rarified social stratum and to develop social connnections amongst the equally powerful.

I think courtesy and grace are worth adding to consideration of others regardless.

Now, where did I leave Shropshire, I’m sure I was playing with it just 10 minutes ago . . . . . . .