Word To Use Today: pukka..

Here's a word that's come down in the world, and almost half-way round it, too.

Pukka is an Indian word that means properly done, or perfect.

But when the English language appropriated pukka, in the 1600s, it was used to mean genuine, or of good quality, or correct, or authentic. Until quite recently it was commonly used only by people who'd lived in British Colonial India, or their descendants, so it was most definitely a word of the ruling classes. 

And then at the turn of the millennium a cook called Jamie Oliver, in the guise of a chirpy East Londoner, started using the word pukka on TV and it rapidly lost whatever cachet it had, and became, briefly, a word used by hip people who were also pretending to be chirpy East Londoners.

All of which means I've never really been able to use the word pukka without wincing.

But, hey, it's a perfectly good word, and am I going to be allow myself to be embarrassed into avoiding it?

Erm...

...

Couldn't I just say genuine? Or good-quality? 

Authentic?

No?

All right, perhaps I'll try, then.

Pukka...

...I suppose anonymously, on a message-board, wouldn't count...?

Word To Use Today: pukka. This word comes from the Hindi pakkā, firm, from the Sanskrit pakva.