I had a siesta yesterday in the woods of Pex Hill a couple of miles from my house. This was the view.
In English we call it a kip. Why? I wondered. Well this is the answer I found:
“Kip is an old Dutch word kippe that came from the Middle Ages meaning a hut. Where people would live and sleep.
In the middle of the 18th century it became an Irish slang for brothel. The woman who ran the brothel was not a Madame but a Kip-keeper. The houses they lived in were kips.
By the nineteenth century in Britain although not in Ireland, the word became associated as a lodging house for tramps and the homeless. In Scotland it means a bed.
By the twentieth century it started losing its association with a place to sleep and became associated with the act of sleeping itself. So today if someone says have a kip they mean have a nap. Or I am having a kip means I am having a nap.”
Which leaves me to ask: OK, where does “nap” come from then?
Answers on a message please.
