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

NAF apparantly means nasty as f**k

In East Indian terms has POSH anything to do with SPICE ?!

I first came across NAF as a broadcastable (points for new word?) expletive in the comedy series "Porridge".
Was this its origin ?

I've heard this explanation of POSH many times, but I don't believe. I don't have any real reason for not believing it other than that it sounds too good to be true. Does anybody know for sure?

OK started life in Boston, as an abbreviation for Oll Korrect.

The word NAF, see above, has some correlation with the old army term Naffy (a slang word for the base canteen) so perhaps the nasty as... thing was coined as criticism of the food on offer.

It is perfectly legitimate to invent new words. In my household we do so often. Groblin, for instance, means small horrible person and is a combination of gremlin and goblin. Ratobiography is.. well I am sure that you can guess. The point is that these words are only useful to a limited number of people. People with common frames of reference. As I understand it this thread occasionally drifts onto the topic of British English. Presumably this is the set of words which would usually be understood by British speakers of English. It includes words understood by all speakers of English and words understood only by Brits. These latter are the words in which we are interested. Words that we make up or that are in very limited usage, ie only in Codford St.Mary, do not count.
I have always spelt naff witha second f. I do remember its use in 'Porridge'. I think that perhaps it is a genuine candidate for Brit English as defined above, but I know nothing of its derivation.

I have first-hand expert knowledge of the "naffy" issue. It's the pronunciation of the letters NAAFI (meaning Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes), and like most 'institutes' is reputed to add bromide to the tea !

(PS worked for NAAFI at HQ in London)

Off-subject slightly ... in an idle few moments, I've worked out that the rate of postings is accelerating, and will reach 10,000 by next June if it continues !

Now on-subject ...
regular in US-speak = normal in BE-speak
what does normal mean in US-speak ?
regular in BE-speak means uniform, even ... that sort of thing

Gnomon, do you know for certain that OK started out in Boston as an abbreviation of 'oll korrect'? This sounds even less likely than the explanation for posh. I thought that Boston was a fairly civilised area of the US, apart from the strangled accent of course. Why should they use such spellings? I think that etymology is an inexact field of study.

"I eat bran because it keeps me regular"

Sadly, the origin of OK is not as clearcut as I thought. See the following article:

http://www.m-w.com/whist/ok.htm

It appears that OK first appeared in print in Boston in 1839 and the story about it meaning Oll Korrect came into vogue in 1840, but it is not certain.

Gnomon ... as opposed to ...
"I eat bran because it keeps me normal" !!

I'm answering a posting way back - you lot have been to proliferous.

I think opposites (i.e. whether to say un- , in-, dis- ) have in many cases to be learned by rote, in the same way as you have to learn genders in foreign languages.

Often you just double the first letter: irresponsible, illogical.

I have trouble remembering if it's inofficial or unofficial. This is because I have been speaking mainly German for a whole generation now and so many words are only just a bit different. The prefix un- is more common in German for opposites.

(I meant too, with two 'o's)
And now I've read all the other postings and would contend that regular can also be used thus:

"She's a regular little know-it-all"

And I would like to say that pathetic and apathetic are not necessarily not opposites.

a- as a prefix means more "without" rather than "the opposite to". pathos is feeling or deep feeling or being moved, as far as I remember (Greek, I suspect). Apathy is the state of having no feeling, not caring, being apathetic is therefore in a certain sense the opposite of having pathos, feeling emotion. So there is a logical etymological explanation.

This explanation for Posh comes from a book on the British Empire (Pax Brittanica I think, I'll try and remember and check) which appears to be well researched in other areas, so I am inclined to believe it. Feel free not too. Also the Goons did a very fine show on Britain and the race for the first Rocket Propelled NAAFI. Not that that has anything to do with the topic, I just find it funny, and they do mention the horrible tea.

Naf is Nasty as F*** - now there's a thing! I like that.

I once had a friend who would describe a disasterous attempt as sometign that was completely fubbed - standing for F***ed up Beyond Belief.

hippie;;hipster,familiar with the latest styes ideas;informed knowledgeable yippie;youth international party;ecstatically rebellious students opposed to the vietnam war yuppie; those who will say yes to anything if it will make money,yup=goofy saying yes

I have heard that explanation of POSH many times, so lets accept it. I remember also a rather spicy chant that West Ham fans used to taunt Mr Beckham with, in relation to POSH, but thats another story, though it may account for her strained smile.

NAF I am sure was used before Porridge in previous TV series, but as an adjective, not a verb, as in "Naff Off". (Does anyone else remember when Fletch first arrived in Prison, and during the medical, the doctor, on the other side of the room, asked him to give a sample of urine, holding up the flask as he made the request. Fletch replied, incredulously, "Wot, from 'ere?".)

**Having lowered the tone twice in one entry, he left for the day**

good work

This word is famous for once having been used by Princess Anne to those plaguey,pesky nuisances the gentlemen of the press when she came off her horse at a water jump.I wonder if she knows what it means?