WORDS

Post

Poor John Thurloe must be turning faster and faster in his grave these days as the Government goes on polishing up its plans for privatising the Post Office. I believe he was the first person to be officially called Postmaster-General. Anyway, an Act of 1657 said it was illegal for anyone to "set up or employ any foot posts, horse posts or packet boats" except him - entrepreneurs had been horning in on the trade, or trying to, ever since Henry VIII's time. Post meant "station", from the Latin positus ("placed"), posts being the places where sprinting horses stood waiting to take over the packets for the next stage.

It had nothing to do with the Old English word for those stout stakes driven into the ground, on to which announcements (later to be called posters) might be posted, and which had long provided a simile for stupidity. So if an army officer says he is waiting to be posted but doesn't know when the posting will be posted, he is using two different meanings in the same sentence, and you may tell him (though he may not listen) that he is being homonymous.

The career of post (in the Latin sense) was predictable enough. Almost from the first it was not only the stage where the mail changed hands but also the person handling it. Less than a century on, it was the means of conveyance; another century after that and it was not only the carrier but also what was carried. Nothing could be more logical. Naturally all these meanings overlapped. The 18th-century post-chaise had the original early-16th-century meaning: a post-chaise didn't necessarily carry mail, only changed horses at each post or stage. I have just discovered that post-haste was a Tudor franking mark (originally HASTE, POST, HASTE). Worth reviving, perhaps? You never know.