Many of my coworkers are Brits and I have mostly grown accustomed to Brit-speak, but sometimes they still throw me a curve. Tonight our director said that such and such was really naf (NAFF? NAAF?). Can I get a translation? From the context I can guess that it means not good, not well-liked or something like that.
Anyone know the origin?
Worthless or unfashionable. See here under “N.”
It’s “naff”.
And I see here it’s polari. Which was British gay slang of (up to the) 1960’s (back when it was illegal).
Meaning: unstylish, bad, drab (from Not Available For Fucking)
I don’t know if that the real origin, but I think it perfectly likely and so does my friend Sandy.
Many men would agree with you. many men. many many men. many men. many many.
Owl - also a RTH fan.
Golden rule of slang etymology - any explanation that relies on an acronym is probably wrong. Related words date from at least the 19th century. http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/the_north_east/archive/2003/10/04/A8s9h9.feat.html
You sure? Because that sounds like it’d be a fairly recent kind of term, yet Fletcher uses it in Porridge all the time…
In his case I think it is a different word , used as a substitute for fuck. So you will hear him say “naff off” quite often. The same applied to Father Ted when the word “feck” was used.
I heard it derives from the low quality of goods sold by NAAFI stores.
Why is this question inn IMHO ?
From the BBC
…There is also: ‘NFW’ - ‘No Fing Way’; and 'SNAFU - 'Situation Normal, All Fd Up’. This last one is reputed to be the origin of ‘naff’, which was popularised in Britain in the 1970s programme Porridge, and reportedly used by Princess Anne5. In recent years, it has also come into gay parlance to disparagingly refer to heterosexuals - standing for 'not a f**ing fairy’.
And this site says that we don’t know where exactly it comes from but gives all the possible answers already listed :
The etymology of “naff” is ultimately unknown. We can provide several theories…
* According to Kieth Waterhouse, author of Billy Liar (the novel that contains the senior literary citation), "naff" was used by UK service personnel as an acronym of "nasty, awful, fuck it".
* Along the same vein, the acronym "NAFFI" has been used by UK service personnel as an acronym for "Navy, Army, Air Force Institutes" (equivalent to a US "PX").
* Partridge suggests that "naff" may be a backslang formation of "fanny" (UK slang for "vagina").
* An explanation from London's gay community points to the acronym "not available for fucking" (ie, "straight").
* The AHD3 suggests that "naff" is derived from the dialectal "naffhead" ("simpleton").It just goes to show how hip I am that I have only just stumbled upon this thread! Back in 1968, when I worked in a menswear boutique in the King’s Road, Chelsea, SW3, my colleague Geoff Lewis (rest his soul) – who was a fashionista, a beer aficionado, a fighter and a successful lothario – told me that NAF was a gay term for anything tacky, tasteless, unpleasant or unstylish…and it was simply an acronym for Nasty As Fuck…