Have you ever wondered what people mean when they say someone sounds POSH?
If you do know what it means, do you wish to add some poshness to your English?
Or do you want to better differentiate between
Posh English and standard English so that you don’t mix them up?
If you identify with any of these questions, watch this lesson until the end so that you
understand (and maybe use) the Posh English that some British people use.
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So, here’s some general information.
More than just a feature of language, posh is associated with the upper class,
related to having or spending money. Posh people in Britain use words that maybe
the general population would not normally use and their pronunciation also changes.
Take a look at these sentences with the word Posh that a user of Urban Dictionary shared.
This will give you an idea of the cultural significance of this word.
In this lesson, we’ll focus on words that will make you sound POSH and also help you
understand posh English. So if you want to boost your language level,
then this lesson is definitely for you!
We’re using clips from Bridgerton,
Downton Abbey and The Crown to give you real examples with these words.
You may want to sound posh in certain situations at work,
university or social gatherings, but even if you don’t want to speak this way,
you might want to understand it as it’s part of British culture. For example, you could hear an
English person speak POSH as a joke! We do love to experiment with different accents!
Besides that, it’s always good to have an idea of the difference between posh English and casual
English so that you don’t say something posh if you’re hanging out with friends for example.
So, imagine you’re going to Surrey as an exchange student,
and your host family are the Spencers, a classic posh, upper class family.
A few things you might notice in conversing with the members of this upper crust family
is they’d use very, so, and really less frequently. Instead you’ll hear:
Rather, as in for example
“It’s a rather difficult question”
or as in “to rather like something.”
You could also hear this word at the end of a sentence to correct
a misstatement or emphasize a point.
Other words that are used to emphasize an idea are quite, fairly, utterly, awfully, and jolly.
Notice that even though “awful” generally has a negative meaning, when you say it as “awfully”,
to add emphasis, it generally has a positive meaning. In the following example,
both utterly and awfully are used. Another rather Posh sounding word in this example is indeed.
In our FwF course, we’ll teach you important vocabulary, just like this, to help you
avoid making mistakes. Of course in addition to learning thousands of the words we really use in
our everyday speech, understanding how natives really speak, using correct pronunciation and
laughing along with all the jokes. So you can try that absolutely free with our 3 part masterclass.
You can learn more and sign up by clicking up here or in the description below.
Let’s move on to some of the adjectives that posh people like to use. Imagine it’s 5 pm,
you’re still at the Spencer house in Surrey and Mrs. Spencer asks you “Darling,
do you fancy a cup of tea?” Can you guess what would be an appropriate posh reply to that?
Splendid is a typical posh adjective. You could say “That’s a splendid idea!” or
simply say “Splendid!” if you like what someone else said).
Posh people also love the adjective marvellous,
so after you’ve had dinner with the Spencers you could say: “Dinner was marvellous.”
Take a look at this example from Downton Abbey,
where they use a couple of adjectives common in posh talk.
In this clip we just saw, there’s another common
feature of posh talk, which is adding do before a verb. So, they’ll say:
Back to some adjectives, as you’re still hanging out with the Spencers,
you might be invited to a ball.
Actually, a ball, which is a large social occasion where people dance, are more a thing of the past.
However, if you do get invited to a ball, you can say afterwards: The ball was stupendous!
Let’s now move on to some posh slang. These are words that you can use in more informal
situations when you’re around posh people. The first one is jolly. We mentioned this
one as a synonym of very, but also if you’re jolly you’re happy and enjoying yourself.
When something is nonsense, meaning ideas, opinions, statements etc that are not true
or that seem very stupid, you may use a funny slang word: poppycock.
The next slang word is bugger. This is an offensive word for
someone who is very annoying or unpleasant.
You can bugger it! when you are annoyed or angry or tell someone to bugger off,
which means to go away or leave a place.
This is a slightly less offensive way of telling someone to leave you alone
without using a strong curse word. You've probably heard this one in
many famous British films such as Love Actually and Notting Hill.
Our next lang word is golly which people use to show surprise.
And, because British people love to talk about the weather, you can say
something like What ghastly weather!, which means “What terrible weather!”
When you're in Surrey you might make friends with a group of chaps or you might
date a nice chap. Chap is another way to say man.
Twit is an insult which means stupid.
So, to recap what you've learned in this lesson.
British poshness is associated with the upper class. For that reason, it’s not the most likely
English you’ll hear when visiting the UK but this is language that people do like to use.
I also taught you these posh words that you can use,
not only with the intention to sound posh, but sometimes even when you want
to sound a bit more sophisticated or if you're in a formal situation.
With many hit series like The Crown, Downton Abbey and Bridgerton, to name a few,
that depict the upper class, you’ll be able to understand the language they use better!
So if you liked this lesson, make sure you give it a thumbs up and if you’d like a lesson on one
of these series we haven’t yet featured, let us know in the comments down below!