Doing a cryptic crossword this morning produced a word I'd never heard before. More correctly, a word I was well aware of, but not in the context given. The definition was "police" and the answer "beasts." It led me to start thinking about the names and terms we use for the police. No doubt there are many variations across different countries. Here are a few that we use in Britain. Beasts Rozzers Peelers Bobbies Coppers Filth Pigs Plod Fuzz Old Bill Scuffers Rozzers, peelers and bobbies are derived from Sir Robert Peel, who founded the Metropolitan Police in London in 1829. Filth and pigs are, fairly obviously, terms of insult. Coppers probably emanates from cop/capture. Plod is a reference to PC Plod, a character in the Noddy books of Enid Blyton. Scuffers is a term more common to the Merseyside area of England, around Liverpool, and probably relates to policemen on the beat and their footwear. Fuzz may be a corruption of the word force. Nobody really seems to know where Old Bill comes from. I'd be interested to hear of any other words, particularly the more archaic terms.
While etymology is often an inexact science, I'm always very dubious about acronyms. These are usually contrived long after a word comes into existence (for example, the idea that "posh" comes from "port out, starboard home" is just plain wrong). Cop in the sense of ‘capture’ or ‘catch’ is first recorded in 1704. It seems more like to emanate from the Latin capere, meaning, to grab or apprehend.
"Long Arm of the Law" is one …and if I get pulled over I wink and call him "Sugar"…works like a charm
Sir or ma'am (with hopes of winning points) Officer (with hopes of winning points) Fool (don't care either way)
Troopers. Marshals. Bears. Donut Patrol. Hun (Biggles adventures). On a serious note, in our day, our police law-enforcers look after our community's security. We need to support them 100%. They are in the front-lines protecting us and making sure that people obey the law. Police lives matter, don't you agree?
A long time ago, I heard some took the 'bad word' used by hippies etc., and presented it to stand for: Pride Integrity Guts. Many don't live up to that, but then, many do.
I was reminded of another word by a Scouser (someone from Liverpool) the other day: bizzies. The term comes from 'busy' in the sense of inquisitive or prying.