Talk:Douglas Valder Duff

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Supposed origin of "duff up"

The page currently claims: "Other sources say he was dismissed for the ill treatment of prisoners and that his name was the source of the slang expression "to duff up" someone." Two print sources are cited that are not easily check-able, but it seems very dubious to me. Checking British newspapers, variations on this phrase did not start appearing until the early-1960s, almost thirty years after the events claimed to inspire it. It seem incredibly unlikely that such an obscure person as Duff could have entered the colloquial English language decades after the fact. According to my Concise Oxford Dictionary, the phrase is thought to derive from the noun "duffer" as an "inefficient, useless of stupid person," i.e. to beat someone senseless/stupid. Nick Cooper (talk) 12:09, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]