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

Not really, since the word comes from the Latin pecuniaris, and the 'y' likely be a shortening of that.

surely the pro of procrastinate is a prefix? (although what crastinate means?? - although I'm sure I've heard of a crastinator...)....

As to toffee nose - surely related to "stuck up" if your nose sticks up in the air and is stuck up - how'd it get there - toffee is sticky so it's make it stick .... Nah but...

If you chew toffee and get some stuck on your teeth and try and pull it away - think of the face you make..... Doesn't that make you look a bit "posh" with you nose stuck up???

pro- is often a prefix, but not in this case - or in property,programme,prone,prod,proctor,prompt...
Yes, y is an adjectival ending, but it hasn't been added to a word (root) that can stand by itself - whatever it did in its original language
BTW can anyone come up with a derivation for quirk? (vide supra) ()

I may have some flair for posing questions, but I feel totally lost when it comes to sensible answers!
I bow to the superior intelect of my peers.

Someone asked if we have toffs on this thread - no, just superior peers! ()

All I have is origin in 16thC as a verb but of unknown derivation. Earliest sense of its use as a noun was as as subtle verbal twist or quibble later becoming an unexpected twist.

Interestingly enough the closest my trusty old Brewers gets to quirk is quirites which is latin for spear carriers (ie the Romans). Spooky !

Red

I know it is a different work entirely, but the latin name for oak is quercus. I only say that because I am rediculously proud I know it!
agcB

I seem to remember a rather civilised researcher called 'Quercus'. A little idiosynchratic claim staked , or do I mean quirky - that was a corny pun!

**Hangs head in shame** 'idiosyncratic'

Police (even American police) like to trace their origins back to Sir Robert Peel. I suppose they are the first police in the form that we have them now.

There had been police agecneis even before that. The United States Park Police (They police the federal parks in Washington DC and San Fransico along with some other odd place) were formed by George Washington. Most of our really old police forces were orginally slave patrols. We've also had county sheriff's back to and before the forming of the nation.

In midevil England if there was a violation of the law, then people would raise the "Hue and Cry", and all the able bodied men were supposed to come to the aid of the person raising it.

We've always had some way to police ourselves.

What is the "Hue" in "Hue and Cry" ? (I've heard the Mallopropism of this phrase "Human Cry").

Have we already covered "posh" ? (also pronounced "poh-sh").
What about "his nibs" ?

I seem to remember something about this earlier, but have the sneaking suspicion it may come from when writing wasn't that widespread - so "His Nibs" would be the person or persons that someone would go to to get a letter writ/read.... Nib referring to a Pen Nib of course

You're going to think I made this up. I didn't though!

"Posh" is an acronym for Port Out, Starboard Home, and refers to the best side of the ship to have a cabin on if you're sailing to the States from Britain and then back. Keeps you away from the sun or something. I'm not posh enough to know...

Sailing to India, I always thought, ... Britih Raj, and all that.

This is all before airconditioning, and cooler cabins were more desirable. The only way to get a cooler cabin was to be on the shady side of the ship.

If you were on the Port (right) hand side of a ship sailing south, then your cabins would be in shade in the morning; and when the ship turned the Cape, your cabin would be in the shade for most of the day. You would be south of the equator for bulk of the journey, and therefore the midday sun is in the north, and the cooler cabins would be on the south. Port Out.

The opposite is true for a ship sailing west and north - Starboard Home.

This seems like a myth to me. Surely cabins were allocated when tickets were bought, and the luggage would have the cabin number on it not just p.o.s.h. which is hardly a clear direction to anyone putting the luggage in the right cabins.

a sceptic called Ben

Not as long as nobody links to stuff outside their own website

I guess the Port Out, Starboard Home allocation of cabins was like the old-time equivalent of ...
"Smoking or non-smoking?"
(Astronuats peer at 'smoking' aliens)
"Nahn smoking!"
(with acknowledgement to British Airways)

Acronyms are endemic in the modern world. There seems to be a preponderance of three-letter-acronyms (TLA - how elegant !!) - can anyone fathom a reason for this ?

Can't exactly offer an explanation, but three is often regarded as an ideal.

The reason British number plates were XXX 123 X, was because groups of three were seen as easy to remember, I believe. Same for the old phone codes, where WHI was Whitehall, etc. Of course, both of those may really be because three is just enough to provide enough detail and permutations, without being too long to remember.

When my father worked for a living (for a wage, instead of the ridiculous amount he does now for nothing - and everyone says workaholics are a symptom of my generation!), everyone in the company was known by their three initials. Of course, this was a reflection of the times, I suppose, where world leaders were often referred to that way: JFK, LBJ, etc.

When presenting an argument, three is often seen as a good number of things to present. I suppose it has a good cadence. 'We will do this and this' is fine, but 'we will do this and this and this' has extra zing.

I only heard about the Posh thing recently - it was presented as a way of remembering the difference between Port and Starboard - so as a Mnemonic for this not as the reason that POSH meant POSH.....

Oh, and I was told it was the opposite way round - that the Posh Peeps wanted the Sun - so going to India (oi fink) its that way round.

TLAs look to be a prime candidate as an American invention, particularly when applied to leaders, because there is almost consistent use of firstname-middleinitial-lastname in the States.
Here we have Tony (?) Blair, William (?) Hague.
The Americans have even applied it to the deity (Jesus H Christ).
Business is peppered by them (organisation names, jargon etc), and technology has made an are of the use of acronyms.