Guards! Guards! (Terry David John Pratchett) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

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This is very British slang. Posh, meaning upper class, arises from the days of the Empire. It is an acronym, standing for ‘Port Out, Starboard Home’. These were the most pleasant (least hot?) cabins on the ships sailing to the jewel in the crown, India, and therefore the most expensive, meaning that only the aristocracy could afford them.

(The above explanation is in fact quite false — that is, it’s true that posh means upper class, but the acronym is one of these persistent, oh so plausible, after-the-fact etymologies, which are nearly always wrong.)

‘Bint’ arises as a bit of cockney soldier slang in WWII. It is actually Arabic for ‘young girl’. Many British soldiers were stationed in Alexandria, Egypt, in North Africa, and this word was brought into the language by them.