More Posh than Becks Now yer talking...pint of Becks please....

'Posh' is quite an interesting word. It is one of a handful of acronyms that have made it as fully-fledged words in the dictionary (along with radar, laser and yuppie to name but three).

'Posh' also reflects social history. In the days when Britain had an Empire, and before the invention of both aircraft and air-conditioning, the trip to visit one's Indian possessions involved a lengthy trip by sea. The comfortable way to travel involved ensuring your cabin got the pleasant morning sun rather than the fierce afternoon heat. Hence the need to travel out to India in a port-side cabin, and home in a starboard-side one.

This 'Port Out, Starboard Home' (or POSH) arrangement, was taken up by the more wealthy passengers. Hence 'posh' entered the dictionary as meaning stylish and wealthy....

.....or so the story goes. Chambers Dictionary guardedly says that 'there is no hard evidence for this' - but it would be a shame if it wasn't so.

(for the sake of clarity, this etymology is almost certainly no more than just a good story...but there are many other examples of this. How do you feel about the explanation that the origin of 'The whole nine yards' relates to the length of the gunbelts in a P-51 Mustang. If a pilot returned with no shells left in any of his gun belts, he was said to have given the enemy 'the whole nine yards'....? Or maybe not - take a look at http://www.9-yards.com/whole9.html