You may hate "moreish" but it is more interesting than you think. Candidates for earliest usage are 1690 and 1738! The original spelling was "morish". Quite commonly you see it spelled "moorish", wrongly castigated by "experts" as a spelling mistake, this is simply a play on words - used for example by an Agatha Christie character. This works because the southern English can't pronounce "oo" correctly.
Comments by thosthos
ThosThos commented on the word moreish
You may hate "moreish" but it is more interesting than you think. Candidates for earliest usage are 1690 and 1738! The original spelling was "morish". Quite commonly you see it spelled "moorish", wrongly castigated by "experts" as a spelling mistake, this is simply a play on words - used for example by an Agatha Christie character. This works because the southern English can't pronounce "oo" correctly.
February 7, 2012