Mufti day

We are (I hope) neatly hanging up blazers and suits, folding white shirts, and reaching for our smart casuals today. We all pay £2 or more for the privilege, and the proceeds today go towards the Chocolatada festival in Mrs Starr's home town in Peru, where volunteers run a huge community event involving a mug of hot chocolate, a slice of sweet panettone,  and,  for the children,  a Christmas present. The people of Picomayo don't have much and we know that our contributions will make a big difference.

Any blog readers who would like to add the small change from your dressing table, or a windfall note found in the bottom of a handbag or inside a pocket - you know how to find Mr Starr or me. We can handle cash, cheques, or online bank transfers.Just ask.

We call it a mufti day - so we ought really to be wearing dressing gowns and smoking caps. Wikipedia tells us that :

The word originates from the Middle East and is Arabic: Mufti (مفتي) means an Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law (Sharia), and is the active form of the Arabic afta, meaning "to judge". It has been used by the British army since 1816 and is thought to derive from the vaguely Eastern style dressing gowns and tasseled caps worn by off-duty officers in the early 19th century. Yule and Burnell's Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive (1886) notes that the word was "perhaps originally applied to the attire of dressing-gown, smoking-cap, and slippers, which was like the Oriental dress of the Mufti".


It rhymes neatly with another favourite borrowed word, shufti. The Oxford Dictionary has this: 

noun (plural shuftis)

British informal

• a look or reconnoitre, especially a quick one:I’ll take a shufti round the wood while I’m about it

Origin:

1940s (originally military slang): from Arabic šāfa 'try to see'