The Dictionary of Posh: Incorporating the Fall and Rise of the Pails-Hurtingseaux Family

Description

The Dictionary of Posh serves as an essential guide to the (ab)use of many English words by the decidedly up-market and the resultant and endangered language they speak: Posh. This is a right royal comedy of errors. Hidden within normal English is a separate language still spoken by those born with silver spoons in their mouths. It s called Posh. A word of English can be spelt the same but mean something completely different in Posh. If you say the word Mention in English, people will understand Remark upon ; but in Posh this means a large house. Say Ace and speakers of Posh will think you are referring to a cold thing one's butler puts in a G&T. This book will help you learn Posh, often with side-splitting consequences. To aid rapid mastery, helpful examples of the various words in the dictionary are given in context. These helpful examples collectively add up to a story within the dictionary The Fall and Rise of an Important Family the sorry saga of riches, ruin and redemption that this book really is. AUTHOR: Hugh Kellett studied languages at Oxford and has been playing around with words in London advertising agencies most of his life. The humorous potential of the English language, this mishmash of the tongues of our invaders, its crazy spellings, rich nuances and punny possibilities have become his abiding passion. His first book Glitzch! earned him many plaudits as a modern wit and wordsmith. Now with The Dictionary of Posh he turns his wordsmithery to something even more fundamental than history - to the English language itself - and more precisely the revelation and preservation of a rather exclusive version of it, Posh. The result is a restoration comedy of rumbustious proportions, and a book that will have you laughing out loud.

Hugh Kellett studied languages at Oxford and has been playing around with words in London advertising agencies most of his life. The humorous potential of the English language, this mishmash of the tongues of our invaders, its crazy spellings, rich nuances and punny possibilities have become his abiding passion. His first book Glitzch! took a word-based technology theme: the hilarious and often alarmingly perceptive rewriting of British history with deliberate wrong autocorrects, and this earned him many plaudits as a modern wit and wordsmith. Now with The Dictionary of Posh (Incorporating the Lamentable Tale of the Fall and Rise of an Important Family) he turns his wordsmithery to something even more fundamental than history - to the English language itself - and more precisely the revelation and preservation of a rather exclusive version of it, Posh. The result is a restoration comedy of rumbustious proportions, and a book that will have you laughing out loud. Hugh lives in Falmouth, Cornwall, with his waif.

If you are keen to brush up the clipped tones of the 1950s Field reader, or inveigle yourself into conversation with two grand dowagers, then Hugh Kellett's funny little volume may help. Written with a wordsmith's ear for the sound of language, it runs from A to Z but incorporates within it a story, a 'lexiconic novel', perhaps the first of its kind... In Kellett's dictionary Dad is dead, and flesh is flash; mind becomes maned and ears for yes; all of which makes perfect audible sense. For those in need of assistance simply turn to Kellett's guide to phonetics in the appendix first. A jolly stocking filler, illustrated by Field regular Oliver Preston, and destined for yuletide loos. -- Alexandra Henton * The Field * How to talk Portia* than Her Majesty. *For us hoi polloi, that means 'posher'. And as Olivia Colman speaks the Queen's English [...], here's a witty guide on how we can all sound awfully upper class. Olivia Colman's first two words as the Queen in the new series of TV's The Crown are 'old bat' as she describes her likeness on a new set of stamps. Colman is said to pronounce the words as 'ewld bet'. Cearly, the 'Queen's English' is much posher than the one most of us speak. A new book, The Dictionary of Posh, by Hugh Kellett, gives a wry guide to how the royals and fellow upper classes speak. So pour yourself a nice glass of 'wane' and get learning! Cheers... or should that be 'chairs'? * Daily Mail * Learn how to speak the refined, plummy prose so beloved by the rich and well-heeled in our gracious land (or lend). * Lady magazine * 'Mention', that is to say, 'mansion. 'Ace' that is to say 'ice'. Hugh Kellett's wit, along with cartoons by Oliver Preston, provides a hilarious insight into an endangered language, Posh.