Dictionary of Posh

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 has become his abiding passion. Now he turns his wordsmithery to the revelation and preservation of a rather exclusive version of the English language, Posh. The result is a restoration comedy of rumbustious proportions, and a book that will have you laughing out loud. Oliver Preston’s illustrations have been published in The Times, Punch, Cotswold Life and The Independent and he draws regularly for The Field magazine. Oliver’s work has been published in sixteen books, including compilations of his cartoons and he is the current chairman of The Cartoon Museum in London.

'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.'