Word: posh
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...instance, to point out at some length the irony latent in the fact that Walt Whitman's fame exists solely among the "scholar swells" he despised, and that he is absolutely unknown to the commonality of man for whom he professed to write, or that the incredibly ornate pish-posh of Henry James is explained by his belief that legible and comprehensive language of any sort is very vulgar, just, for instance, as an editor of the Harvard Crimson believes that any news anybody could conceivably want to read is very vulgar and therefore unprintable, to point out these...
...18th Century, a country gentleman of Surrey, England, used to argue with his son concerning the perfectability of society. Quoting his optimistic French friend. Jean Jacques Rousseau, the father would say: "Liberty, equality, fraternity." The son. whose name was the Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus, would reply, amiably enough: "Pish-posh! Very pretty. But society will never be happy so long as it permits itself to multiply more rapidly than its means of sustinence." Impressed by his son's views, Malthus Sr. encouraged Malthus Jr. to pen An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement...
Anathemata are to him: "Pish Posh!" he labels in a Rage The writings of that Worthy Sage, That Man of Superhuman Brain, The Syndicated Doctor Crane, And loudly voices his Dislike For the Reverend Doctor H. van Dyke...