Semantica's Phoenixation
A Fire has three essential life stages – initiation, sustenance and extinction. If you ever ask it which part of its life is the most painful, it will begin serenading – ‘staying alive, staying alive eh eh eh eh ’.
The infernal fires of Mordor smolder in my heart for perpetuity. Their number ranges between ten to fifteen, each having sparked as I understood myself better. And then some extinguished, leaving behind vestiges in my persona (non) grata. Often I come across old friends who point me to them. The message has metaphorical allusions -- “666 remember there is a small growth at the end of your large intestine which was once your tail, an object of proud possession and swagger!”. Anyways these fires have burnt out, but mind you they were one helluva inferno when they blazed.
This brings me to the case in point. Before I throw any elucidation on this crazy-rant-on-some-fires-and-dragons, allow me the use of euphemism – lets call these ‘fires’ as ‘passions’. So read over the post afore with the following macro running on your neural compiler
(Find) ‘fire’ (Replace with)‘passion’
I shall wait allowing for different processor speeds of my readers. (Whistling while you re-read)
Ahlan wa sahlan. Welcome back. NOW I shall talk straight :-) All this while I have been talking about my myriad pied passions. How they began, how they died and the problems I face sustaining them. One such passion is etymology – word origins. A little bird told me that my off sprung blog ‘Semantica’ lies in a state of neglect. Mea Culpa.
Let me fix some SLAs here (Service Level Agreements). Semantica will be updated every Sunday. Would request interested readers to take cognizance and insert an interrupt in their compiler routines :-) My immediate goal is to achieve 6 sigma quality in compliance to set SLA.
Ok then .. let me resume what I had fondly embarked on some moons ago. All of us have heard of the word ‘posh’. Posh Spice being the word’s celebrity endorsement. Have you ever wondered where did this word come from. Voila! You can outsource the thinking to me, sit back and read the fascinating albeit apocryphal tale of the word ‘posh’
And oh.. thanks little bird!
The infernal fires of Mordor smolder in my heart for perpetuity. Their number ranges between ten to fifteen, each having sparked as I understood myself better. And then some extinguished, leaving behind vestiges in my persona (non) grata. Often I come across old friends who point me to them. The message has metaphorical allusions -- “666 remember there is a small growth at the end of your large intestine which was once your tail, an object of proud possession and swagger!”. Anyways these fires have burnt out, but mind you they were one helluva inferno when they blazed.
This brings me to the case in point. Before I throw any elucidation on this crazy-rant-on-some-fires-and-dragons, allow me the use of euphemism – lets call these ‘fires’ as ‘passions’. So read over the post afore with the following macro running on your neural compiler
(Find) ‘fire’ (Replace with)
I shall wait allowing for different processor speeds of my readers. (Whistling while you re-read)
Ahlan wa sahlan. Welcome back. NOW I shall talk straight :-) All this while I have been talking about my myriad pied passions. How they began, how they died and the problems I face sustaining them. One such passion is etymology – word origins. A little bird told me that my off sprung blog ‘Semantica’ lies in a state of neglect. Mea Culpa.
Let me fix some SLAs here (Service Level Agreements). Semantica will be updated every Sunday. Would request interested readers to take cognizance and insert an interrupt in their compiler routines :-) My immediate goal is to achieve 6 sigma quality in compliance to set SLA.
Ok then .. let me resume what I had fondly embarked on some moons ago. All of us have heard of the word ‘posh’. Posh Spice being the word’s celebrity endorsement. Have you ever wondered where did this word come from. Voila! You can outsource the thinking to me, sit back and read the fascinating albeit apocryphal tale of the word ‘posh’
And oh.. thanks little bird!
Labels: Passion of the 666, Semantica
3 comments
the story sure's fascinating..does that mean, the word posh has not been used in literary works before the Raj era?? hmmmmmm...will remember to look out for the word when i'm reading the old classics next ....
and i'm so glad u paid heed to it :)
in fact, thanx to this blog, i have started to give attention to the etymology of some of the tons of interesting words that i come across in a day (since yesterday, that is :DD)...today's was "Mulatto" !!!
The first recording of 'posh' in print that seems to fit the current meaning of the word is a cartoon which contains this dialogue between an RAF officer and his mother, in Punch magazine, September 1918:
Oh, yes, Mater, we had a posh time of it down there."
"Whatever do you mean by 'posh', Gerald?"
"Don't you know? It's slang for 'swish'"
Interestingly there is no citation of 'port out, starboard home' in any of the numerous letters and literary works that remain from the British Raj.
Source - www.phrasefinder.co.uk
its fascinating how words come into a language from sources unknown and start living a life of their own!!!!
Reminds me of two of my earlier posts on them :
"Words are things; and a small drop of ink
Falling like dew upon a thought
Produces, That which makes thousands,
perhaps millions, think."
-Lord Byron
and then that line mouthed by Eva in Autumn Sonata that refuses to die, "Those are very pretty words. Words that don't mean anything real. I was brought up with beautiful words. Mama is never "furious" or "disappointed" or "unhappy". She is "pained". You have a lot of words like that too. It's a kind of occupational disease............................"
Beautiful, eh!!! :)
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