h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The best evidence was that 'OK' was derived from "Orl Korrect" due to a New England. fashion for mis-spellings circa 1820.

This is a contraversila one, but a leading linguist/slangologist who died a couple of years ago (I forget his name) traced it back to newspaper sources.

I think you could add a rider...something to do with Army Acronyms.

Having grown up in an army environment, and being at school in the UK, letters home would always be addressed to a series of initials. Occasionally a country might be appended, but not always:

Lt Col RF *****
CHQ 15/A
QQE
NT
BFPO**

This would inevitably find its way to the intended recipient, but try finding it on a map!

RF

There is a short Edited Guide article on Polari.
I seem to remember a discussion involving KerrAvon (among others), but I'm not sure if it was in this thread or elsewhere.

How about that?

The Rule and the Exception in consecutive postings.

Where else would you get such service?

That's fascinating, Edward! I learnt some "gypsy" words from Tim Powers novel "The Anubis Gates," which featured Gypsy characters, and I noted the use of Gypsy and Yiddish phrases in the Cockney spoken by DelBoy and Co in 'Only Fools and Horses' (which was shown here in the '90s).

I recently heard the last episode of Round the Horne on Radio 7 from which I was astounded to hear Julian and Sandy introduce their wives to Mr Horne ROFL

"Gnomon's Rule of Acronyms" was invented to defuse the people who think that Posh, F**k, Pom, Camp and Tips are all acronyms.

..and wogs.

Posh is a very convincing one . . . sorry to hear you say it's not "port out starboard home" -- what is it then?

OK (from "Orl Korrect") is not on the other hand controversial at all, it's extremely well documented http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_250

I accept OK and ANZACS as genuine pre-WW2 acronyms. I can find any evidence for POSH, despite the story being repeated ad nauseam.

OK. back to the Shorter Ox: "Posh: slang 1918 (perhaps adjectival use of slang 'posh' (19th century) money, a dandy, of unknown origin) Smart, 'swell', fine, splendid."

Well that's all fine & dandy. If it meant money, doesn't that suggest "poche", French for pocket?

It certainly does. We still say "out of pocket" when we've spent money we needn't have.

Can we think of examples of modern words which we know to have been derived from initials, but which we now treat as words? I don't mean stuff like DVD - which we use without remembering that the V was originally meant to be Versatile, not Video. I mean words we've more-or-less forgotten that they stood for someting.

'Pakistan' might be one example.


....which brings us back to Romani:
In one of Patrick Leigh Fermor's books which recount his journey on foot across Europe as a young man, he talks of coming across some Gypsies in some woods in Transylvania. He was able to recognise some of their words by analogy to Indo-European sources. Linguists tell us taht this is not because of their borrowing from European languages, but because from a common heritage originating in Northern India (genetically, the Roma are the nearest we have to the original 'Aryans' Which is ironic. Numbers in Romani and other Indian languages are closer to those in European languages:

Romani: jekh, duj, trin, shtar, pandzh
Sanskrit: eka- dau- traya- cetura- pancha-
Hindi/Urdu: ek do tin tchar panch
Farsi: yek do se chahâr panj
Irish: aon do trí ceathair cúig
French: un deux trois quatre cing

(and there are also similarities in the some of the traditional English shepherds' counting terms - http://www.slaidburn.org.uk/counting_sheep.htm.)

...unlike the unrelated....
Basque: bat bi hiru lau bost
Cherokee: sagwu ta'li jo'i nvhgi hisgi
Wolof: benna ñaar ñetta ñenent juróom


For some Romani words in English: http://www2.arnes.si/~eusmith/Romany/loanwords.html

Note, especially, 'radge' - of Trainspotting fame
and 'chavvy' which is currently in vogue as 'chav' to mean what, in my neck of the woods, is called a 'ned'.

Note: 'Gypsies', include such groups as the Irish Tinkers, dispossed during The Great Hunger, who made their own Irish-based contributions to a general 'Gypsy' slang/pidgin/creole.


(Sorry! I get carried away when I talk about languages!)

(Sorry! I get carried away when I talk about languages!)

trouble is you keep finding your way back

Logicus, I don't think the Irish Travelling People should be lumped in with Gypsies. Although they travel in caravans and have their own language, they are not related in any way to the Gypsies, as far as I know. Their language is based on Gaelic.

Some words that got into English from acronyms?

Snafu and fubar are common enough in military circles. In computers, we have spool and ram. In taxation, we have VAT and, in Ireland, DIRT. There is the Irish suburban rail system, the Dart. We type a PIN into money-dispensing machines (or more often a PIN Number).

Gnomon your post immediatly grought into my mind "off pat" did that come into use haveing come into use from acronym of P A T,although if it did more likely to be latin based, as for "travelers" they cannot be "lumped" under one people one nation as in there" traveling reconize no borders and throughout history would have left "roots" all over the world , that are reviseted often.
but then again i am speaking on my inderstanding, some of it comeing from parents and grandparents "teaching" or observations being better word.

It wasn't logocus that lumped Irish travellers in with Gypsies - twas I.

What I really meant was that they *aren't* really the same. However - the travelling community in these isles now - familiarly if incorrectly termed 'Gypsies' - uses an argot which is predominantly English, but which contains elements of both Romani and Irish Gaelic.

Incidentally - the Roma brought their metalworking skills with them from Northern India - hence 'tinkers'. In Central/Eastern Europe, many settled Roma remain active in light industrial metalworking.

Although Irish travellers travelled the length and breadth of the country, they did not travel to Britain and the rest of Europe until recently, so their language was kept separate from the Romany language of the European travellers.

That list of Romany words in English is interesting - none of them except "cosh" have made it to Ireland. We've heard of the word "tanner" but never used it for our sixpence even though we used all the other money words like bob and half-crown. The others "radge", "chavvy" etc, I've never even heard of. So Romani had very little influence on Irish English.

So Gnomon what does the acronym spool stand for? I've never come accross it as an acronym in computing before.