The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #42079   Message #609681
Posted By: catspaw49
14-Dec-01 - 11:58 AM
Thread Name: BS: Of Brass Monkeys and Balls
Subject: RE: BS: Of Brass Monkeys and Balls
Knappo Tom said:"Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!" {And all this time, you have had dirty thoughts, haven't you?}"

For those with the dirty thoughts, I suggest THIS...Go ahead and Click It, it's not a porn site

As to POSH.....I was absolutely sure it meant port-out,starboard-home until a few months back when on another thread, Sourdough pointed out the following from the Maerican Heritage Dictionary::

"Oh yes, Mater, we had a posh time of it down there." So in Punch for September 25, 1918, do we find the first recorded instance posh, meaning "smart and fashionable." A popular theory holds that it is derived from the initials of "Port Out, Starboard Home," the cooler, and thus more expensive side of ships traveling between England and India in the mid-19th century. The acronym POSH was supposedly stamped on the tickets of first-class passengers traveling on that side of ships owned by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. No known evidence supports this theory, however. Another word posh was 19th- and early 20th-century British slang for "money," specifically "a halfpenny, cash of small value." This word is borrowed from the Romany word påh, "half," which was used in combinations such as påhera, "halfpenny." Posh, also meaning "a dandy," is recorded in two dictionaries of slang, published in 1890 and 1902, although this particular posh may be still another word. This word or these words are, however, much more likely to be the source of posh than "Port Out, Starboard Home," although the latter source certainly has caught the public's etymological fancy.

Bummer huh?

Spaw